Whisper
by Moonstar's Fire
Summary: Kagome aka Whisper is an elf detective who needs to get 50,000 blue in one month, but of course, she doesn't have that much money, so she is in the dumps when a young elf comes and asks her to do a case for him for 50,000 blue, and she takes it.
1. Prologue

Whisper - In the Dark

(Prologue)

This is your first time in the city?

Welcome to Scherazade.

I'm sure you'll just love the place. It's just great…if you like the world the way it is now.

Just how is the world, you ask?

I guess it's fair question. I mean; there are some out-to-lunch people in this day and age… Just yesterday this guy came up to me while I was waiting for the metro and asked me what century it was…but anyway…

The world. What's happening. Right. We're in the fifteenth century of the New Era, more precisely, in 1428 NE.

Why New Era, you ask? Boy, you really are out to lunch.

But hey, who am I to judge?

A thousand four hundred and twenty-eight years ago, the planet awoke from a nightmare. Nobody knows how long that nightmare had lasted: seconds, hours, minutes, years… but its damage was lasting. There had been a world before ours, and fourteen hundred years ago, it had been turned to ashes. The cauterized scar of that world's death was marked upon the heart of every living being, and still is. They missed their previous life, this first world, even though they did not remember it. People still miss it, even today. They go around talking about life "Before", with a big "B", as if the ruined world is a kind of opium for their tortured souls, as if this world Before was the land of milk and honey and dragontales, a kind of paradise lost from the world. Personally, I don't particularly believe this milk-and-honey crap. I figure the world Before was just like this one, and some crazy clot of a scientist came along with the be-all and end-all mother of inventions…that turned out to be just that, the end. Something that is not far removed from where technology is headed these days as well.

But that's just me.

In any case, this world Before is a thing gone from our memory. There isn't one person on the face of Scherazade that really remembers what it was like, even the elves, for the few that are left. Some of them are old enough to have survived the cataclysm, but none of them remembers what it was like. And now that world's totally gone, and when it blew itself to hell it took with it a part of every person's soul.

And fourteen hundred years later, that's where things stand. The humans, the dwarves, a fistful of elves and a pinch of this and that. We've pulled up our pants and rebuilt our planet, but basically, we are where we were the day the first survivors dragged themselves out of the rubble: soulless. Lost children, looking for mommy and daddy alone in the night. We've even lost our God, or gods, or whoever the hell used to look down at us from their cloud. The world is ruled now by different gods, the twelve men and women who led the first survivors out of the apocalypse. They set themselves at the heads of the world's populations, and seem to have been there ever since.

There's something a little weird about them, but don't tell anybody I think that, because I could get into a spot of trouble with the local Fanatics. You see, the twelve lords, or rulers or governors or gods, whatever you want to call them, sit in their palaces and rule the adoring masses below them with all the steel-handed velvet-gloveiness you'd expect of a dyed-in-the-wool politician. They were, supposedly, just ordinary Joes with a hankering for justice and social order. That's kind of odd, no? But, hey, maybe their fourteen-hundred-year-old term in office gave them opportunity to hone their political skills. That'd be oddity number two, in my books. And they don't ever have even the slightest glimmering of opposition from the people…use your imagination as to why, 'cause if I spoke my mind on that one, I'd be sure to be lynched in no time flat by the Fanatics. As I said, welcome to Scherazade.

Enter me. "Whisper" Firimar.

No, that isn't my real name. But I have my reasons. For one, I am a little too much like the Sorcerer-Kings for my own taste (and personal security). I have lived a very, very long time, or so I am told. They say I was pulled from the rubble at the same time as the future kings and queens of the world were gathering their followers and putting the pieces back together. I also have that same silver streak in my hair that the governors reportedly do. I'd cut it, but I've tried, and broken many a pair of scissors… When I was found by the survivors, some supremely intelligent folks had the sense to hide me as I lay unconscious for a few hundred years and were kind enough to fill me in on what was happening in the world when I came to my senses, totally amnesic, save for my real name. They called themselves "Caretakers of the Blessed" and were very nice people. The last of them, an elf called Telperinn, died just a few years ago. He was the one who insisted that I was an elf like him…but I don't really know. I'm not like any elf I've ever seen before, and for that matter, neither had Telperinn. I've got this white hair, sorta silver in some lights, skin whiter than an elf's (and healthier-looking too, no offence). Whereas you elves have either blond or grey hair and gold or silver eyes, mine are a strange mix of blue, green and yellow. I suppose the pointy ears are misleading, the one thing I do have in common with normal elves. I call myself half-elven now, but I don't know… I've never really asked around about my heritage, considering that my folks are most likely looooooooooong dead and, more importantly I'm too scared to even use my real name in this pit.

So there you have it. The world, the people, and me.

Nowadays I'm a P.I. in East Scherazade, the relatively good side of the continent-spanning town. It's a good business, what with weirdoes and disappearances galore. Of course, Governor Mordred doesn't lift a finger about the sky-high crime rate. Go figure, but don't say I said that. So yeah, I'm a private eye. Even my office goes by my alias: "Whisper Firimar, Private Investigator" and under that writing on the glass of my door: "Asking the right questions, and only the right questions". In my business, it's bad to be too curious, and my customers, generally speaking, don't like that in a woman. I have a secretary, Marcy, dumb as a post and blond to boot, I am rich enough to live and as far as I know, I'm lucky enough not to have a bounty on my head, for some reason or another. And aside from the slight anti-institutionalism inherent in my personality, I'm what you'd call almost normal.

But, and now we come to the heart of the problem, I feel unfulfilled. I'm not happy, but I'm not sad (and believe you me, I'm pretty fortunate to be able to say so) but just the same, there's something missing from my life. I've watched as technology has evolved at a just plain scary rate, as the NE society reached its peak and fell away into decadence; I've had friends, and lovers galore (and I've watched them die) but there has always been a piece of me missing. And I still haven't found it, after fourteen hundred years of life. I miss a part of my life that I knew I used to possess. I miss it and I know it's gone, but I can't put into words what it was. And it's this search for that piece of me that led me to ask one question too many and land me where I am now.

Talking to the guy in the prison cell opposite mine, two blocks away from the Governor's palace, and in trouble up to my neck.

What're you in here for, buddy?

Caught inside the guv's palace! Are you insane? What the hell were you doing there?

Oh wait never mind, curiosity caused the cataclysm, after all.

So what about you?

You say you're an elf passing through?

Well, pleased to meet you, and once again, welcome to Scherazade. You're sure in for a wild ride.


	2. Hesitation

Whisper - Hesitation

(Chapter 1)

I cracked my knuckles in the dark, both out of restlessness and anger at myself for having been so dumb. It was pitch black in my cell and even if I pressed my nose to the bars, I couldn't see the elf next door to me, even though I knew where he was. The prisons must have used a darkness spell, 'cause my vision is as good as an elf's, if not better, and everybody knows that elves can see miles in the dark. I figured as much from the start, because the elf didn't even know I was there until I swore loud enough for him to hear.

What a strange cookie that one was… Just like the guy in that ridiculous-looking hat who asked me what century we were in. Was that yesterday or the day before? I'd lost track of time sitting here in the dark. My stomach was sure that no time at all has passed, since I wasn't even hungry. My instincts knew better though. They might be using a hunger-controlling spell, or a brain-twister to make us think we weren't hungry… Although tricks like that don't usually work on me, at least, not if I don't want them to. Even now, if I stretched the limits of my mind just a little bit… There! I could feel, almost see the fabric of the spell, the shifting matrix to fool my mind and blind my eyes. If I really wanted to, I could poke a hole in that little matrix and slip through the spell.

But that would not be a good idea here. A magical breach in a prison spell just seconds away from the governor's place? Nah, that'd be the best way to suffer separation anxiety from my head…

So I sat back in the dark and in my absence of hunger and hummed a little ditty to pass the time. I was singing "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Mead". It was a reliable way to keep track of time. When I had touched the spell's matrix, I saw that it was Lirimas morning, and I calculated that I had been in this hole for a day, since Daermas evening. It was about two hours before noon. Every round of "Ninety-Nine Bottles" took about twenty minutes to sing.

Halfway into the third round, the elf opposite me told me to shut up.

I was sure he was an elf now; I could barely hear myself sing and if he could hear me, it meant he had good hearing, even for an elf.

By the end of the fifth round, he swore he'd kill me if he ever got out of the prison.

I started singing in my head.

I was just beginning the seventh round (silently of course, a death threat not being something I take lightly), when the lights came on and the door was flung open. I figured it was about past midday.

Concentrating deeply on not going blind, I was in no state to get up on my own, so one of the magically muscled prison guards was gallant enough to jerk me to my feet and drag me out of the cell just as my eyes began to get used to the light.

Brushing the guard's grip off as best I could, I stood straight and looked around. The elf was obviously having the same troubles as I, for when he stumbled out of his cell, he was squinting so much I could have mistaken him for a moleman. If he hadn't been so thin, tall and elfishly handsome… He had traditionally elven features: charming, if a little feminine; a blue-blooded elf's greenish-blond hair, colourless eyes and that smooth, pale skin, complete with the slightly ill, green cast that followed elves around everywhere nowadays.

Of course I didn't really have time to contemplate the scenery, 'cause as soon as the elf was out of his prison, we were shoved along the corridors on the way (hopefully) out of the place. Along the way I noticed that all the cells were inky black on the other side of the bars, and I wondered how many other prisoners waiting starving in their corners.

By now my stomach had realised that it hadn't anything in it in a day and a half, and was now protesting loudly.

We reached the top of the metal stairs and wound up in an office. The warden's, I guessed. The warden, or whoever the hell he was, was a weasly little snippet of a man. He had greasy slick hair only on the left side of his head and one leg shorter than the other. The metal compensating heel of his boot hit the ground with a sort of piratey clink-clunk, clink-clunk that really got on my nerves. I couldn't see his eyes from behind his round glasses, which reflected the garish blue werelight-in-a-globe on his desk. In short, the little twerp creeped me out.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he said in a nasal, oily voice. "Whisper Firimar and Delon Parn." He looked us both over, head to toe, and stopped in front of me, his face on a level with my chest. I imagined seeing a glimmer of drool run down his chin.

"Miss Firimar," he stated imperiously to my cleavage. "Do you know why you just spent a day in prison?"

I decided it was time for the dumb blond act.

"Oh my Ga-wads!" I wailed theatrically, taking a rather provocative stance. The warden seemed hypnotized by the contents of my shirt. I fought back the urge to wretch, figuring that it wouldn't be very good for the show if I barfed all over his half-bald head.

"Has it really been two days!"

The warden seemed to shake himself out of his torpor and looked me in the eye with budding cruelty.

"Why yes it has, Firimar. And do you know why?"

Trying desperately to salvage my act, I regarded him with as much innocent absence of thought as I could muster and said nothing.

"It's because you were caught snooping in a restricted area! Do you know the penalties of such crimes?"

Alarm bells were ringing in my head. Yup, this is trouble alright. I let out a wail of anguish for good measure.

"Oh no! Was that where I was? Oh, stupid me! And I thought that I had taken a wrong turn on the way to the…er…grocers!"

I was really dancing on quicksand now. I pulled off my fedora and proceeded to wring it distraughtly. Sorry darling, but this is so you and I can live another day together.

Because I knew what the penalties of finding one's self in that particular restricted zone were, and I didn't feel like being made into antimag carburant just yet.

The warden took another look at me and started. I wasn't really sure if that was a good thing.

He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and looked at the top of my head with watery, blank blue eyes that me crawl inside. He looked at my face again and it took all my willpower to resume the weepy girl act and not make a break for the door. For all the good that would have done with Chuckles behind me, and Smiles blocking the exit with his fridge-shaped shoulders.

Even the elf was looking kind of strangely at me. I turned back to the warden, who eyes narrowed when they met mine. He broke the stare and turned to his desk, scribbling something on a memopad before facing me again.

"Well, Miss 'Whisper'" he sniffed, in a voice that screamed "if that IS your real name". "Take this as a warning. Go, get out of here and take heed of restricted sector warnings next time.

"My jaw must have dropped open, for the warden saw the slip and spitefully continued.

"As punishment for this criminal act, you are to be fined fifty thousand blue chips. You will present the amount to the police station of your sector in one month. If, by that time you do not have the money, you will be executed following the amendments of these laws…"

I listened numbly as he prattled on and on, then took the fine, cast a last glance at the elf, who was still handcuffed and looking at me very strangely now, and left. I wondered for a moment if he was going to get out of there with all his members intact.

Fifty thousand blue chips…

I uncrumpled my hat and absently jammed it back on my head.

Fifty thousand. That was almost what I made in a year. A year when I always had a well-paying contract on my hands.

Fifty thousand blue chips… I only had twenty thousand green in my bank account, and on top of that, I had been living off it for a month, not having any cases to tend to.

Leaning against a support post, I smacked my palm to my forehead. I felt the inklings of a major migraine coming on. What the hell was I going to do now!

Sighing, I followed the signals down a level to the metro and waited for my train. I took off my trusty fedora and turned it over in my hands as I stood.

"It's out of the frying pan and into the antimag furnace, eh Hat?" I said to it. Yes, I am in the habit of talking to my hat. Call me crazy.

And then in a rush of coal smoke and steam and the squeal of metal on metal, the 214 train came into the station and I boarded, thankful only to be going home.

I reached Southeast Scherazade by about three-thirty and stopped by my office, where Marcy was having a nervous breakdown, as I had expected.

"Oh, boss!" she harpy-shrieked, swooping down on me the second I dragged my sorry butt across the threshold. "I was so scared that you'd been killeded or raped or moidered! What happened?"

I brushed her off tiredly, rubbing the bruise that Chuckles' hand had made around my forearm when he'd dragged me to my feet that morning.

"Nothing, Marcy," I replied tiredly. "I just asked one too many questions and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's all."

I forestalled the incoming "but BO-owss!" by continuing,

"Any new business?"

Marcy quieted herself down enough to answer that there hadn't been

. I swore and stormed into my office, taking a long belt of the private stash of scotch under my desk. Flopping down, I opened I drawer and took out my pistol and its holster. For some reason I felt like I was going to need it soon. I slipped it over my shirt and flung myself into the comfort of the fake leather of my chair, where I promptly fell asleep.

I woke up to the grumbling of my stomach three hours later and stuck my head out of my office door.

Marcy was filing her nails. Not turning around, she said,

"No boss, nobody called."

Sighing, I turned back into my office, slamming the door enough to make the glass pane rattle.

Yielding to the protests of my long-empty tummy, I grabbed the vidophone and dialled my favourite tigrae restaurant.

Fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds later, my mouth was watering over a plate of spicy vita-sashimi supplement, a side order of fried protein-noodles and a can of carbo-soda. It might have been artificial, but it was still good.

Sometimes I miss natural food. It's been about seven or eight centuries since I haven't tasted any, and about nine since the last plants and animal died out. Today, society relies on supplements and enertrons for food, but I can't really complain. Artificial or not, Uchida Iranai's sashimi-supplement is the best.

Having wolfed down half of my dinner, I began wondering again about how on earth I was going to make ends meet for my fine.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried for very.

In mid-bite of a forkful of protein-noodles, I heard Marcy shriek. Seconds later, the door burst open and slammed into the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster.

And who stepped into my office but an elf. None other than the elf I had met in prison.

I practically inhaled my noodles, and tried to look calm and poised, all the while protein sauce dripping from my half-ingested mouthful into the cardboard plate.

Calm and poised indeed.

"Hello Whisper," he said softly. "I had a little trouble with your secretary. She didn't want to let me in without an appointment. She really is just how you described her."

I swallowed, trying to wipe the gawk off my face and almost succeeding.

The elf continued in that calm, level voice, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be standing in front of me six hours after I though he was going to die. A gut feeling of mine told me that he was the kind of man whose manner seemed to beg for trouble.

"I need your help."

What a surprise.

"Really?" I said coolly. "My…help?"

Yeah, sure. He needs my "help" as a person, the pure goodness of my heart.

"You see, my sister has been kidnapped and I fear for her safety. I'm afraid that her kidnappers might be rather unsavoury ruffians and I really would hate to have anything bad happen to her."

He sounded like he was threatening me!

"Ah, so you need a private detective, not help."

A flicker of impatience crossed his features, as if I were an annoying bug he wished he could squash.

"Yes, whatever you call it. But not just any detective," he pursued. "I need someone…discreet. As you may have noticed, I've had some unfortunate skirmishes with the long arm of the law. And I do not wish for things like that to happen again. You seem to have that much in common with me, and that is why I chose you and not another investigator. That and the fact that, given your current financial situation, if you pardon my rudeness, I thought you could use a helping hand with your income."

And then I understood what the elf wanted.

This investigation was going to be very, very illegal. The man standing before my desk, with his impeccable elven accent, had just asked me to find his sister without going to the police and ignoring whatever he told me to ignore. And he thought that I'd agree to do this just because I was in the hole for forty-eight thousand blue!

I looked at him icily, hoping my intuition about him had been right, and that I was not giving up a possibly lucrative case.

"No, I'm sorry," I said, in a tone that must have given him frostbite. "I'm surely not discreet enough for you."

Translation: I'm not immoral scum that'll do any old dirty work for some cash!

"Oh, really?" he replied, sounding mildly surprised. "I'll pay you very well, and all in advance, too. How about… say, ten thousand blue?"

Although my breath caught in my throat at his offer (it was enough to buy myself a huge apartment) my sense of doubt prevailed.

Sly bastard, if you pay me all in advance, you know I'll go pay the fine and then I won't be able to break the contract if things get out of hand.

"I'm very sorry, but I'm really booked solid as far as cases go," I bluffed. "I won't be able to help you at all."

The elf's face hardened and he leaned down on the desk, his face inches from mine.

"Not even if I pay you even more?"

I could smell expensive perfume about him. Maybe I was wrong, and I was turning down a good opportunity to pay some of the fine and still be able to eat for the next six months…

I hesitated, and that was my fatal mistake.

"Not even for… Fifty thousand blue?"

There was silence in my office.


	3. Sunset on the Ceiling

Whisper - Sunset on the Ceiling

(Chapter 2)

There was silence in my office.

I wet my lips.

He looked at me with an arrogant smile.

I raised an eyebrow, trying to look cool despite my racing mind.

The fine or my freedom? The cash or my safety? What about my pride?

And wasn't fifty thousand blue a lot for a simple kidnapping?

I opened my mouth to speak.

Am I immoral scum that'll do any old dirty work for some cash?

"Done. You've got yourself a detective, Elf."

I guess so.

The elf then raked a hand through his thin, fluffy green hair and looked at me with an oh-so-smug smile.

I felt the fake leather of the chair start to rip under my fingernails, but instead of giving him a tonsillectomy via his bellybutton (like I should have done) I gazed at him sweetly, accepted his check and slammed my agenda on his fingers.

"I'm sorry," I said in a voice about as sweet as battery acid.

He rubbed his hand and said nothing; a twitch of irritation was the only thing that let me guess he was furious. I remembered that I was working for him and fifty thousand blue and that kind of mellowed my anger.

"I take it I start work right away?" I asked, slightly sweeter this time.

"Yes," the elf oozed, handing me a fat folder of documents. "Here are some things that should help you along."

As I leafed through them, he spoke up again, in the same, slick, women-are-at-my-feet-because-I'm-just-so-charming tone.

"You have all the time in the world, Miss…or should I say Detective Firimar. But I would add that you might want to get it done in less than the time allotted to pay your rather…unfortunate fine."

That was the last straw.

"Listen you," I snarled, grabbing him by the lapels of his overpriced suit. "I may work for you, but I don't have to take this kind of crap. That money is mine now and I'll do what I like with it, when I like. Got it? I'll find this sister of yours, you can bet your life on it."

I caught the first hint of a smug grin and gave him another good shake.

"No because I like you, not even because you're paying me, jerk. I'll find her just so I can have the satisfaction of never seeing your sorry carcass sil'Edhil its way back into my office after this is done. Got that all written down?"

With a calm that made me want to make antimag carburant out of him, the elf brushed himself off and smiled to me.

"You've made your point, Miss Firimar, thank you. I intend you no offence and only wished to help you out of a difficult situation…"

Help me my cute little arse!

"…and thus I shall take leave of you. If you have anything at all to ask me, or if you need more time, information or funding, don't hesitate to call me."

With that, the elf flipped my his business card and jauntily strode out of my office into the gloom of the streets. I glanced out the window to see him crossing the street on his way to the train. He even waved to me as he got in a lift to finally zoom up a level or a twenty, and out of my sight.

"Good riddance," I muttered promptly. I then stormed out of the room, the 'inkling' of my migraine becoming a constant pound now. Marcy opened her red-lacquered mouth but I stopped her with a look. My dinner, that is what I hadn't left on my desk, was beginning to feel more like lead noodles than protein ones and I was desperately in need of blowing off some steam. I clumped down the wrought-iron stairs in the wrought-iron stairwell, lit only by the flickering neon blue werelight. I cursed a bit as one of the bulbs died just as I passed underneath it.

"The trinity blow me to Tannia!" I spat at the burnt-out werelight. "You're going to cost me a bloody fortune! You can't trust those government-run magic companies anymore, they'll bleed me dry by the time they re-energize you!"

Noticing that I was addressing a light bulb, I sighed and marched out of my building, rather disgusted at how the day was going so far.

I walked west for about two miles under the stone and steel roof, the afternoon sun filtered and reflected to the pale and sallow countenance it had on my level. I sighed and gazed up at the vaulted ceiling above my head, nearly five stories high, sad and dull in its grey masonry. I could feel the anger seeping out of my mind, to be replaced by the melancholy I always felt when I looked up and didn't see the sky.

Stopping by habit almost transformed into instinct, I turned where I always did and slid into a lift. I yanked the lever and leaned back against the box's back wall as the cranking and grinding of gears and the hissing of steam announced that the lift would soon lurch into motion. I watched the arches and the domed ceiling, black with soot. I watched the layer of metal girders; the circuits, the concrete, the wires and plumbing fly by, replaced by the cobblestones of the next level. Then its own soot and steam, its gothic arches and vaulted ceiling, the concrete and the girders and the wires and the rest. And then it started all over with more cobblestones scuffed by weary feet and over again as my lift went up. People came and went as I flew. Young and old, tired and grey or happy and loud and cheery, they fluttered around me like moths…when of course moths still existed.

Finally, I slowed my ascent as the buildings became cleaner and higher, and the patches of sunlight grew slightly less reflected and filtered. Yellow werelight was still the only illumination to the level, but it was all that one could hope for with the advent of the Ceiling, that had been in place for almost three hundred years. I had reached level ten, twenty-three levels above my own, and ninety above the deepest bowels of the city. I stepped out of the elevator and into the relatively clean air of the layer. The cobblestones here were squeaky clean and free of weary pedestrians, the air free of smog and the ceiling almost invisible at its twenty stories high. Werelight created the impression of daylight, computer-regulated to fade and shine along the pattern of an equinox.

I blinked back sudden tears. You didn't even know what time of year it was anymore. It hit me hard; I could still remember the smell of grass, the sound of the wings of doves in the wind…

I shook myself and sauntered into a corner behind the lift. Removing an almost-invisible panel, I squeezed into the tunnel I knew was there. I had been coming here for about a hundred years, ever since the lack of sun and sky had brought me to the brink of madness. Telperinn had shown me this place during those days when I tried almost daily to throw myself out the window. There was a ladder in the tunnel, in a pipe that led straight down to the infernal levels, and straight up to my salvation.

I began climbing, savouring the silence.

Sometime later, I reached the marker that read "Sub-Ceiling Level 01" and my heart quickened. I had come to crave this place like a drug, and on some days, ones much like today, it was the one thing that kept me sane. I pried the last hatch's lock (already rigged several centuries beforehand by Telperinn) open and crawled out the door to the world.

It was sunset above the Ceiling.

I began to cry.

I could never hold back tears when I was up here. At my feet, and as far as I could see in any direction, there sprawled the thick, dull black metal of the Ceiling. A green signal light blinked every now and then on the surface of the giant metal plates and steam and smoke and coal dust wafted up from hundreds of thousands of ventilation outlets from where I stood to the horizon.

But above the squalor of Scherazade there was true beauty.

The sky was cobalt blue at the top of the heavens' arch. The colour paled to pearly blue and then to the colour of the tiny spring violets I picked as a child -- my one memory of the world Before. The sun had sunk halfway below the steel of the western Ceiling and it lit the dull metal with a warm orange glow. The clouds in the air above were bright pink and red and purple and even the coal-smoke was tinged with the colours of nature.

How I ached to be able to live forever under this sky, with no miles of concrete and metal and stone to separate me from where I belonged. If I had the choice, I would run along the top of the Ceiling forever, night and day, until I fell off the edge of the world… But Telperinn had also taught me patience, and hope. Hope that one day, everything would be back to normal… If only.

My silver streak of hair fell into my eye as I tilted my head back to look for the appearing stars. It seemed to glow by the setting sun, to absorb its rays and broadcast its light back out to the dying world.

A breeze picked up on the world's roof. It chased the tears of my cheeks and doing, so, brought forth more. Of all the things that I missed in my world under the world, it was the wind I ached for the most. Below the Ceiling, the air moved in a constant, dreary, far-off roar, as a continual flow of fresh air was sucked from off the surface and distributed among the levels that were stacked under civilization's roof. The roar pushed the air around with monotonous rhythm. It felt so dead… Whereas here, free from the governors and the walls and the smoke and the ceilings and the death and decay, there was wind. Real living moving, running, sweeping, dancing wind. It scurried along this world's artificial roof, looking for playthings and finding only the lights and the smoke and the steam and the coal that my world belched up. And it made my heart break every time. I leaned my head back to face the darkening sky and spread my arms as if I hoped to fly away from this place. The wind seemed to laugh in my ear as it chased itself around me. It swirled around my leather pants and boots, flapped my far-too-large-for-me shirt and tie, mussed my silver-white hair and tried to pry my hat off my head. I laughed with glee and then it was gone. I flopped down to the metal ground, only now cooling beginning to cool down (in the daytime, the sun hits the Ceiling's black steel and heats it until it comes close to scorching the air itself).

The sun had disappeared beneath the black world and the stars had emerged. I stayed for maybe an hour after that, until the metal beneath me was almost cold and got to my feet. It was dangerous to stay outside after the Ceiling grew cold. Not only because the nights outside the safety of Scherazade were freezing, but because there had been creatures that had not died off with all the other animals, and they, not being able to live in the day-time inferno, came out to hunt at night. I had only seen such creatures once in my life, in the days when the inhabitants of Scherazade still made frequent visits to the surface.

I had been alone at night, watching the splendour of the three moons rise into the sky and all of a sudden I heard a grating behind me on the steel. I turned to see a bizarre, bedraggled cat-like thing, tall on its feet and hideously skinny, its fur black as night and its eyes glowing like live embers. Its joints twisted backwards and forwards as its lips peeled back in a hiss and a grin. I stepped back and did the thing any scared sentient being would do when in a position to become dinner.

I shot it.

The bullet hit square between the cat's eyes and what happened next still gives me the shivers.

Out of nowhere and everywhere at once the rose a shrill sound like a whistle. And out of the cracks and gaps between metal plates seethed and army of tiny furry things with red eyes, no hind legs and mouths that surpassed the diameter of their own bodies. The critters swarmed all around and like a tide, rushed towards the dead cat and I. Panicking, I jumped for the vidophone antenna that stuck out of the metal beside me and held on for dear life. The creatures flocked to the corpse, and, still emitting that awful, screeching whistle, covered the cat entirely. By the time they finished their fray, not even blood was left, not even the marrow of the cat's bone. Hearing a squawk over my head I looked up and saw a raven perched a bit higher than me. It was a strange bird, its bright eye wasn't black like the other birds, it was blue and green and yellow and the look it gave me pierced right to my soul. I felt like a child being scolded by her mother for having done something foolish and dangerous. Shaking, I disentangled myself from the antenna and slid down the hatch under the raven's watchful eye.

I've never stayed on the surface at night after that.

A rustle and a flap roused me from my daydream with a start, and in no time, I was standing by the hatch with my pistol in hand, ready to shoot and dive in the Ceiling if need be.

I stood tense for a long time, watching and listening.

It was so silent that I began to wonder if I had just been hearing things. The second moon had risen in the sky and I could feel the steel of the Ceiling ice-cold under my feet. Whatever that noise had been, it was time to go back home now. But there was something very familiar about the flap and rustle I had just heard. If only I could put my finger on it…

I closed the hatch and began my descent back into my own personal hell.

It was when I had just passed level nine that I realised it.

"Wings…" I said to the surrounding darkness. Empty space echoed it back,

"Wings, wings, wings, wings…"

What I had heard was the sound of a bird taking flight.

Could it have been? A raven?


	4. Investigation

Whisper - Investigation

(Chapter 3)

By the time I had climbed down to level fourteen, my brain had had time to cool down, and the ravens and wings and monsters in the night had fled from my thoughts. I sauntered out of the lift and stopped at the nearest train station. I wanted to get out from underneath the tons of metal; I wanted to go home… not to the smelly apartment I lived in on level forty-one, but home to somewhere I had never been, somewhere alive. I chuckled a little as my subconscious fashioned itself a place on an island, surrounded by forest and ocean, where there would be someone to greet me, to love me, to tell me that I was where I belonged.

The train came to roll into the station, screeching and whistling to a stop in front of me. I laughed, even though I wanted to cry, as the steam and the coal smoke that blew into my face swept away the silly dreams once again. Those dreams had plagued me every instant I can remember.

Always wanting something more, that's me. Always finding something missing.

What a strange way to behave in this brave new world.

It was late and the platform was empty; but the trains ran around the clock.

For the umpteenth time that day, I heard a noise behind me and turned around.

This time it was the rustle of a cloak and the tap of boots on the cobblestones, and when I looked at where the noises had come from, of course I was alone. I wondered if I had just been hallucinating. Maybe I really and truly was going bonkers this time.

Maybe I had been out of my mind since that day I had first tried to kill myself and these centuries that had passed were just a prelude to the inevitable.

It was a bridge, I thought as I entered the train.

I had tried to throw myself off a bridge. It had been a bridge over a fissure…I could see levels and levels below me. It was almost so deep that I could see the glow of fire from the very lowest of the levels…

The train jerked to a start and I was thrown into a seat and out my persistent dreams.

The man in front of me looked up, startled.

He had red eyes… "I'm sorry," I said at length, trying to stop staring at his eyes.

I didn't really know why; it just seemed that I was intruding in some very personal space.

"What for?" The corners of his mouth twitched up a little.

"For…for disturbing you…" I replied uncertainly.

"It's a public train, isn't it?" He sounded infuriatingly nonchalant.

"It is…it's just…" I trailed off and looked around the railcar. We were the only ones inside.

"In any case, it was nice meeting you," I said, and got up and moved to an empty seat on the opposite side of the car. I felt very strange.

At my station, I passed by him on my way out. He caught my wrist in an ice-cold grip and smiled at me.

"Don't I get to know your name?" he asked, his lips barely moving.

This unnerved me more than considerably. I stood there and gawked at this man, who, by all accounts, was the strangest person I had ever met in Scherazade. He stared back at me, calm; his hand was cold against my skin

A shrieking whistle sounded.

The last call for disembarking.

It was music to my ears!

"This is my stop," I announced, trying to break his grip.

"Your name?"

Now he was downright scaring me.

"Whisper!" I finally yelled at him, watching as the doors began to close.

He released me with a smile and I dashed out of the train. I think between running from a horde of orcs and running from that guy, I ran faster from him!

I blinked. An orc? What the hell is an orc?

My subconscious turns out some pretty strange things from time to time…

The train lurched forward again before I realized that I was still standing on the platform, looking at the red-eyed man. He looked back, a quirk of a smile on his face and all of a sudden I was terribly mad at myself for having gotten off the train.

Shaking my head, I hailed a taxi, patiently floating nearby, and headed back to the office.

I trudged up the wrought-iron stairs, stubbing my toe on a piece of brick under the broken werelight. Marcy was long gone when I came back from my little escape. She had left a note: "no calls or cases" and had gone home to sleep. I checked my watch. It was past one in the morning. The leftovers of my supper sat untouched on my desk. Brushing a roach off the synthetic cardboard plate, I dumped the food in the disposal chute and sat down to the folder the elf had left me.

Flipping over the contents, my fingers stopped on a large photo of the girl the elf said was his sister. This seemed to be quite a problem for my brain to process for this was indeed the "sister" the elf wanted me to find, a young adolescent girl called Nadeshiko, but there was a problem. The girl, as luck would have it, was not an elf. Try as it might, my poor brain couldn't quite wrap itself around the fact that this elf had a sister and the sister was a tigrae… I came to two conclusions. Either the elf had adopted the girl, which seemed most improbable, considering the extent of this particular elf's goodness of heart. Or he simply wanted to find the girl, for some evil reason or other, and he just wanted me to have a pseudo-legitimate reason for hunting a total stranger down. I then realized that this case might bring me more trouble than I had bargained for.

Frowning I looked to my fifty-thousand blue chip check, wedged, fat and teasing, between a caffeine cup and a desk organizer a foot from my eyes.

"What rat-hole have I gotten myself into now?" I asked my hat.

I got no answer, of course.

I might be crazy, but I'm not that crazy yet.

Of course this case looked like it could get me into the loony bin in no time flat. It had already started to eat my conscience. Sighing, I thought about the next morning, when I would presumably take that big fat check down to the cops and buy my freedom from them, all the while sealing my pact with the puffy-haired devil.

It's not too late, the cowardly voice in my head whined. You can still turn the case down.

And then do what? snapped the pessimistic one. Starve?

I'd rather starve than be that creepy elf's puppet! retorted the reasonable one.

I'd rather take my chances with the elf, personally, muttered the gambler in me, more sullen than usual.

"Oh shut up! All of me!" I snapped at the warring voices in my head. They were silent.

I set down the folder of documents about the phony sister and stood up. When I start arguing my more than one myselfs it's a sure sign that I need sleep. I took one more look at the taunting check and moved toward the door.

On second thought I turned back and snatched the money up from my desk, folded it up and stuffed it in my bra. At least the elf wouldn't be able to break into my office and steal his money back.

One can never be too sure when one is in Scherazade.

The next morning I awoke to the minivid blaring the sixth-hour news and the fire escape making strange noises. The minivid I'm used to, it was the fire escape I was worried about. I ran over to the window in my nightshirt, with my revolver in hand. But, as was becoming a pattern, by the time I heard the noise; the noisemaker was gone.

There was, of course, no one on the fire escape.

Tossing my gun down on my mattress, I proceeded to get dressed. Reluctantly, I have to admit. You see I wasn't really looking forward to paying the killer fine. I really didn't like the idea of being in that slimy elf's employ. But, being stuck firmly between a rock and a hard place, I had no choice but to close my eyes and dive headlong into whatever the hells it was that the bastard had in store for me.

I skipped breakfast and went straight to the train platform. The sooner this was over, the better. Biting bullets is not my favorite pastime.

By the time I got to the train station, it was jumping with workers on their way to the daily grind. The fact that the place was packed didn't stop me from surreptitiously checking over my shoulder for the guy that I had seen the night before. Too many weird things were happening to me these days. I felt as if I were in a bubble, surrounded by the noise of the crowds on the platform and the whistle and screech of trains, but isolated from them and the steam and the iron by that same invisible curtain that followed me everywhere. All around me they were grey and I was the only spot of colour I could see. Grey was the colour of their skin, their hair, their eyes and their clothes. Grey was the colour of their lives. Even Marcy, flamboyant as she might have been, was grey in this world.

The train ground to a halt in front of me. With a hiss of grey steam, its doors opened and the sullen workers milled around, not quite pushing for a place on the overcrowded railcar. The trains were grey too, I noticed. I was the only one that still had colour in her. My skin was still rosy, even after centuries under an artificial sun, my eyes had not lost their colour or their shine and I still wore brightly coloured ties.

"What is wrong with this place!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. "Am I the only one who isn't grey?"

A voice in my head reminded me that the red-eyed man from the train had worn colour. Another voice reiterated how much it disliked that particular man and my mind was thrown into another migraine-bringing argument.

"Oh, would you all just SHUT UP!" I half-shouted at myself.

A few passers-by gave me puzzled sidelong looks, but nobody reacted anymore than that."I wasn't talking to you," I snapped to an old man who appeared particularly interested in my ravings.

Muttering profanities, I shoved my way through the dull crowd and onto the train. The past few days had not put me in an excessively cheery mood. I rather felt like strangling someone, in fact.

The only problem, I discovered as the doors closed, was that the minds in my mind were arguing as to whether it was the elf or the red-eyed man.

The train jerked forward and I bumped my head on the window. I let out a string of words that made the lady beside me blush and held my bruised forehead in my hands. Today wasn't turning out to be a very good day.

I felt my migraine come knocking, literally.

An hour and a half later I was in front of the Southeast Scherazade District's police station on level twelve. It was a monstrosity in steel and wrought iron, grey like all the rest, that stretched almost all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, glowing with werelights set to a quarter after eight in the morning, the light getting brighter as the morning went on. People came and went in front of the station, slightly less grey up here than on my native level thirty-three. I actually saw spots of coloured clothing go by. Magically enhanced policemen and bodyguards, I saw, with a fond memory of "Chuckles" and my recent stint in prison, abounded.

Sighing with aggravation at my whole situation, I climbed the marble steps and entered the building.

Right before the main hall, behind a magically unbreakable pane of glass and munching greedily on carbo-doughnuts, sat a rather large officer at a rather small desk littered with papers. A beaten-up sign labeled "Payment of Fines and Bail" hung on the wall above the glass.

I tapped it until the resident cop looked up from his accelerated consumption of pastries and asked me what I wanted.

"I'm here to pay I fine," I said through the little metal speaker-thingy.

"Yeah, who are you?" he asked warily, taking out a long roll of paper.

"Whisper Firimar."

Mr. Law and Order then skimmed through the names on the list before confirming my identity. When he set his eyes on the sum of that fine, they widened noticeably. Giving me a quick head-to-toe, he asked,

"How you gonna pay that sister?"

Noting the suspicion in his voice, I reached into my shirt --the officer coughed and reddened slightly-- and pulled up the folded check. He looked rather disappointed.

I unfolded the paper and stamped it in his window.

Mr. Officer was very impressed.

"Well, ahem, I…er… Just slide that check under the glass and I'll take care of the rest, ma'am."

Ah, Corruption!

"I don't think so, pal. I wouldn't want you to accidentally misplace this little piece of paper before my fine is actually cleared. It would be so easy for somebody to come along and steal it, huh?"

The policeman scowled at me.

"Now how 'bout you write up the forms, and I'll sign them and then I'll give you the money and then you'll put my dossier into the central system and we'll all have a nice day!"

I loved the look on his face just then.

Grumbling as he was, the officer still managed to draw up the forms and sign them, attesting that I had indeed paid the fine. I signed as well, and kissing fifty thousand blue chips good-bye, gave the check in. I watched as the officer, grumbling even more, twisted the forms and the check into a little bottle and sent it shooting down a pipe off to the central systems.

I can't deny how relieved I was. As long as the check wasn't a fraud, I was already half off the hook.

Now all I had to do was find the elf's so-called sister.

Marcy was in by the time I got to my office, and as it turned out, she had been busy.

"Oh, bow-oss!" she screeched in greeting as I trudged across the office threshold. She then began a lengthy rant about what had happened that morning: she had received the bill for the office rent, she had dipped into the cash jar under my desk and paid the bill for the office rent. She had checked for mail, she had called the magic company about the dead werelight, she had rechecked for mail and she had dropped the mail on my desk. On my desk she had noticed the folder the elf had handed me. She then looked at the aforementioned folder and drawn up a list of useful information she had found. All this between nine and ten-thirty.

I was amazed and a bit suspicious.

Beaming, my secretary handed me the fruits of her labours. A list typed on a single sheet of paper. Unable to rid my face of its wary expression, I skimmed the items on the list, trying the while to keep my eyebrow from raising inquisitively all by itself. Dry cleaners, supermarkets, a bank, clothes and jewellery stores, nightclubs on level 47… All places that the elf's sister had been seen at.

"Thanks, Marcy…" I mumbled, in awe.

"Oh it was nuthin' bow-oss, nuthin' at awl! Ah mean after awl…" she trailed off, looking vaguely guilty.

"After all what, Marcy?" I eyed her suspiciously.

"Oh nuthin' boss, you're jus' sucha good gal t'me! Thas' awl."

I frowned at her, but the vidophone rang and she was off the hook. Shrugging, I strode into my office. The contents of my desk weren't exactly as I had left them, and there was a glassful of Scotch missing from the bottle in my drawer. Maybe that's what she felt guilty about… I grimaced. Scotch in the morning? That sounded pretty yucky. I couldn't really blame her, though, since alcoholic beverages haven't existed in Scherazade for over two hundred and fifty years.

In any case, I thought as I looked over the addresses on the list, a glass of booze wasn't a large price to pay for so much time saved during my workday.

Forgetting all about the unopened mail on my desk, I bid Marcy good day and jauntily strolled out of my building. The day suddenly seemed a hell of a lot brighter.

I hopped over to the nearest lift on my way to level forty-one and "Joe's Washbasin", the first stop on my sixty-item list.

After a fifteen minute train ride, I reached the Laundromat and spent the next ten minutes explain, in painful detail, who I was and who it was I was looking for.

"Nadeshiko," I repeated, waving the picture of her. "Her last name might be Parn."

"She have a tail?" asked the excruciatingly dumb man at the counter.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. Oh God yes! Progress! "A striped tail with a white tip."

"Yuh," slurred the man in twenty shades of stupid. "And does she gots purdy lil' pointy ears?"

"Yes!"

"Yuh. And does she have a little kitty-cat nose?"

"YES!" I screamed at him.

"Yuh," he said.

I waited with baited breath.

"…"

I waited some more.

"…"

I waited, slightly aggravated.

The man behind the counter said nothing, and suddenly grinned a crooked-teeth grin. I stooped to be eye to eye with the dope and shouted,

"WELL?"

"Well whut?" he asked dully.

I whipped out the picture of Nadeshiko.

"Have you seen this girl!"

The man made a sound I interpreted as a laugh.

"Nope. But she's mighty cute. Would you be so kind as tuh innerduce me t'her?"

It took all my willpower not to fly off the handle and leave him toothless.

So much for the Laundromat.

An hour later I was on level twenty in a tiny tigrae specialty foods market. Culinary oddities abounded on the shelves and coupons and specials, written in at least three languages, were plastered to every square inch of wall available. The near-midday werelight filtered through artificial bamboo blinds and the whole affaire smelled a lot like fake fish. Protein-tuna flavoured fish supplement, if my nose didn't deceive me.

"Excuse me," I said to the cashier, a young furry that looked a good ten years younger than me. Looks, I suppose, can be deceiving, as I was probably about a hundred times her age. I again took out the black and white print of the young tiger-girl and showed it to the clerk.

"So sorry, misa, I can no help you," she apologized.

Sighing, I slipped the picture back into my pocket.

"Do you know of anyone that could?"

Doubt flickered across the adolescent's features, mingled with something else… panic?

"Umm…" she started. "I… I think so." She turned her head back to a curtained door and snarled something I didn't quite catch.

Perhaps that was because I don't speak cat.

Regardless, moments later a tired-looking, middle-aged tigrae woman emerged from the back room, a piece of salted mackerel supplement in one hand and a paring knife in the other.

She snarled something back to the cashier in a weary voice.

The girl responded with a sequence of hisses, purrs and meows that went by ten feet over my head.

The older woman eye's widened at the mention of something and then darted suspiciously over to me.

"What you want, lady?" she asked aggressively

. "Uh…" I began, taken aback. "I'm looking for a girl called Nadeshiko. She'd be a few years older than miss at the cash, here's her pict--"

"I no seen her around here, lady! Sorry but I can no help you."

She began nudging me in the general direction of the door.

"You want some fish?"

Thinking to buy time, I agreed and in no time, I was back at the cash with salted mackerel in my hands

"So you're certain no one you know of has--"

"--Seen this girl. Yes, very certain, lady. Very certain. Now I got work to do, so I say bye to you."

"Uh…"

"Bye!" she said loudly and disappeared behind the curtain.

Taking out three greens and a few reds, I eyed the cashier again. She looked decidedly ill at ease, but not as if she were hiding something. I thought it was more like the other woman simply intimidated her.

"You're sure you haven't seen Nadeshiko?" I asked while I paid.

The cashier shook her head vehemently and I let it drop. There were still fifty-eight places I had to check out on my list.

And on top of that, my stomach was grunting for lunch.

"Oh well," I said to it as I popped a cube of mackerel supplement into my mouth. "This isn't exactly what I'd call 'food' but it'll have to do, dear."

Three hours later my stomach was rumbling its discontent again and I had relapsed into bad temper. The entire afternoon had been a total bust. I had visited the next fifteen places on my list and of all of them, only five were still standing. Four of those had changed management since the sighting dates on Marcy's list and the only one that hadn't was a grocery store where no one even vaguely remembered the girl. I picked up some real food (well, as real as the food gets in Scherazade) at the little grocery store and continued my hunt.

I began to despair at nine p.m. on a once-again empty stomach. I was just over the half-way mark on my list and no further than I had been with the dullard from Joe's Laundromat. The next place on my list was a nightclub on level fifty-one.

I was rather reluctant to go, and with good cause. The lower half of Scherazade is…how should I say it…far less than trustworthy. I decided that it would be better that I not stick out like a sore thumb so I popped over to my apartment, which was a near-vertical trip up from the nightclub and dragged something more suitable from he bowels of my wardrobe.

By about a quarter after ten, I made my appearance in the bar. I had slicked my rebellious hair back and had put on a few layers of black makeup: black lipstick, black eye shadow, and black nails. I ended up wearing a long black skirt (and I mean long) over a pair of leather pants (in case I needed to move fast) matched with a woven black top with huge bell sleeves tied to the shirt with (more black) ribbon.

I figured I looked like something out of a bad horror vid.

But then again, when in Goth-dom, you might as well look like a Goth.

At least that part of my day was a success.

I floated into the fine upstanding establishment with that thought in mind. The place was throbbing with loud music and flailing limbs. The walls were painted the same colour as me and everyone else, which hardly surprised me. The place was lit with a series of "black" lights that cast their violent purple glow on the two levels of the bar. The dancers gyrated wildly on the ground floor, under cages (that held more wild gyrators) and a raised platform, the stage for a transported-looking DJ. Up two sets of spiral stairs were tables, benches and the bar; not to mention a hanging platform home to yet more wild gyrators.

I figured that up there (and sitting still) was the best place to keep an eye on the scene.

Drugged-out and outright drunken stares followed me up to the second floor and over to a table that stood beside the railing, overlooking the dance pit. I ordered some mead supplement, devoid of all trance-inducing substances (alcohol may not exist anymore, but the good people of Scherazade have found ways around that particular problem) and then I sat down and waited.

I swept the dance floor to see if I couldn't spot Nadeshiko. In keeping with my streak of luck, I couldn't even spot a tigrae in the writhing masses. But that didn't discourage me. This bar was home to more recent sightings of the girl. Marcy's note that she was seen here quite often. Needless to say, I was quite excited.

By the time I had finished nursing the artificial mead, I was less so. I looked down at the dancers below, still unable to spot her and then I scanned the tables I could see through the haze of smoke and lights. I got up, rather impatient, and decided to ask the bartender if he knew anything of her whereabouts.

The barkeep in question was a handsome young man, a sleek doraani elf of about a century or so. His ebony skin glowed in the ultraviolet light and his hair, white like mine, was turned a garish neon blue. His eyes seemed to pop out of his head in the light, and that just creeped me.

He flashed me a blue-toothed smile as I neared the bar.

"And what can I do for you?" he asked suavely. I never liked doraani smiles; they always give me the impression that I'm a rabbit and they're hungry dragons.

How I could tell what a dragon looked like without ever even seeing a picture of one, I don't really know

. In any case, I returned his smile and asked for a refill of synth-mead, being careful to leave him a good tip.

As he took my order, I casually asked him about Nadeshiko.

"Short tiger-chick?" he asked, cleaning a glass. "Huge blond puffball hair?"

"Yeah that's about right."

"She got this orangey, striped fur and a white belly, right?" he said distractedly as he refilled the glass.

"No narcotics, please," I told him as he reached for the additives.

"I've got a hovercab to drive afterwards," I favoured the boy with a dazzling smile.

"Whatever you say, love. Now about this Nadeshiko chick…"

"Yes?" I tried to keep the eagerness out of my voice.

"I've seen her around here. She came in often a while back."

"What, she doesn't anymore?"

"No, no, she still comes in, just not quite so often. And now she's always with this gang of tall dudes in black leather."

"Really?"

This was starting to get interesting.

"Anything happen to her lately?" I asked, stretching faked friendly concern to the limit. "Her brother hasn't seen her for a while and we're both worried about her."

"Nah, nothing happened to her, she still comes in from time to time," the barman said, slipping me my drink. "Only weird thing happen' to her is that her gang of black-leather groupies has gotten bigger these past few days."

"Oh yeah? Well I hope to be able to see her tonight, her bro's worried sick. You think she'll be coming in?"

"Maybe," he replied with a shrug. "Have a good time."

He turned to acknowledge a pair of severely doped customers that had tottered up to the bar.

I turned away and headed back to my table, taking a good gulp of the mead as I sat down.

What does all this mean? I wondered. Has she been kidnapped, or is this another of the elf's lies…? What if she hasn't been kidnapped at all? Does the elf know about it? If he doesn't, maybe he just wants me to find her… and if he does… if he does know, then why the hells did he hire me? And what if she has been kidnapped?

Absorbed by my thoughts, I turned to look down at the dance floor once again. I started to look for tall guys in black leather, but before I could see that there was too much black leather down there to measure, a voice startled me.

It was a man's voice, deep and cool.

And coming from right behind me.

"Do you know what happened to the tigrae who got too curious?"

I jumped a mile and swore rather loudly.

I whirled around to meet a pair of dark purple eyes, almost black, gazing at me with much amusement.

In a split second, the warning bells clanged in my brain.

Those eyes weren't black.

Under a normal light, they'd be red. The warning bells went into a frenzy.


	5. Atrahasis

Whisper - Questionable Nightlife

(Chapter 4)

"Fancy seeing you here," said the man sitting opposite me with a close-lipped smile.

I stared at him, mouth agape for a second or two.

Was it really him or was I just hallucinating?

One of my minds hoped against hope that it was his twin or his clone or a figment of my imagination…or something to keep his from being the man on the train.

No, it was him. Dark brown hair, ghost-white skin, features almost too fine for a human…and the eyes. There was no mistaking his eyes. Even under a black light I could tell.

"So," he asked in a pleasant, conversational tone, over the throb of the music. "Do you know what happened to the tigrae that got too curious?"

The comment set my teeth on edge.

"I don't know," I grated. "She met a red-eyed weirdo dressed in black leather in a bad gothic dance club?"

I looked at him with as much ice in my stare as I could muster.

"I am in no mood to joke, you creep--"

"You flatter me, but call me Seth," he interrupted with another half-smile.

I was taken aback again at his behaviour.

"Fine. Seth. I am in no mood to joke. Where is Nadeshiko?"

He smiled again.

"Why, my sweet Whisper…"

I jumped when he said my name.

"Why ever in the world should I tell you?" he smiled.

"Because," I said, fumbling in my purse to make good on my upcoming threat. "I have a gun and it's pointed at your guts."

His teeth flashed neon blue as he smiled under the blacklight that strobed in the bar. He chuckled a bit.

"Now, now, dear," he said.

Cool fingers froze mine under the metal table.

"What good would that do you?"

His fingers slid over my hand and up to my wrist. He took the pistol from me, and met with very little resistance on my part. My mouth felt dry. He handed it back to me over the tabletop and I somewhat sullenly put it back in my purse. I didn't quite understand how this man had just talked me out of shooting him after being one of the two focal points of my anger during the past few days.

He winked at me.

"Now what do you really want, Whisper?"

"Want?" I managed to croak, bewildered and almost speechless. Let it be said in my defence that I was not used to being so badly unnerved.

He leaned forward and raised and eyebrow. I managed to get a grip on myself at last.

"What I want? I want answers! I want job security! I want life security… I want that goddamn prick of an elf out of my hair… I want enough money to get by… I want to see the…" I trailed off before I said 'sun'.

The red-eyed man, Seth, said nothing for a moment and smiled again.

"You want a lot, Whisper. A bit more and you'd be asking for the sky…"

I was glad the flashing lights hid my blush as he continued.

"…but let's just start with the answers. Now you ask about Nadeshiko. What do you want to know?"

"Where is she and how can I get in touch with her?" I asked instantly.

"And now we get down to business!" he laughed triumphantly. "You are a direct woman aren't you?"

"Where is Nadeshiko?"

"That I cannot say."

"How can I find her?"

"That I cannot say."

"You can't say much, can you? Or is that you don't want to?"

"Now I remember that you are indeed a detective. I can't say because I do not know where to find Nadeshiko or where she might be at the moment."

"What can you tell me then?"

"That she is not this 'Elf' character's sister, for starters."

"Noooooo," I dripped sarcasm. "You don't say! Then who is she?"

"Ah, that I can tell you! Nadeshiko is a young girl that has been entrusted with the Seed."

I started to interrupt with one of the thousand questions that had just popped into my head, but he took no heed.

"She is a girl with a heavy burden. Many want to help her…and many more to bring her harm."

"And you, of course, wish nothing but rainbows and sunshine for her?"

He looked perplexed.

It took a second for me to realise that he didn't know what either was. And had never even seen the sky in which they were found.

"I do what I will, Whisper. I don't profess to do her good, but I am here to make sure none do her harm."

I caught a piercing glance from him, suddenly understanding.

"And you think I'll do her harm?" I asked, incredulous.

"I reserve judgement on that issue, my sweet. But I do doubt the motives of an elf who professes to be a young tigrae's brother."

"That, you don't have to tell me."

"So," questioned Seth. "What do you know about him?"

I opened my mouth to tell him what I knew about the elf, but closed it when I found that I had nothing to say.

The grin faded from the red-eyed man's face. He leaned to within and inch of me.

"So you know nothing of him, and yet you run about in search of the child he seeks for reasons you do not know."

"You don't understand…" I murmured, feeling foolish and suddenly sad. "I don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice," he replied.

"No, we don't!" I exploded. "If I don't find her, I'm toast!"

"Whisper," Seth began, with no trace of mockery in his voice. "You are completely oblivious. You are groping around in the dark and about to fall off the precipice. I would not like to see you get hurt."

"But…"

"Do not get involved in something that you cannot comprehend," he snapped. His face softened just as brusquely and he smiled, almost wistfully. "I have a high regard for life, my dear. I would hate to see yours in danger."

He rose from the table. My poor brain was in overdrive trying to understand.

"Be careful," he said, taking my hand in a cold embrace. "There are great powers in Scherazade. Regardless of your alternatives, I know it is best for your safety if you stay away from here and forget you ever heard of Nadeshiko."

He moved away but I held his hand and stood up, gibbering for him to wait. I was teetering on the brink of both finding the tigrae and possibly losing her for good.

Seth turned back to me and smiled.

"It's no use trying. This is for the best. Let her alone."

"But-" I protested.

"Good-bye, Whisper," was all he said before slipping from my hand like smoke and stalking away.

My mouth was still working in vain, as if it still had something important to say.

I fell back into the metal chair, dumbfounded.

My eyes still on the dance floor below; I drained my glass of mead in one gulp and got up to leave.

I noticed that the lights and music had begun to give me a headache by the time I passed the bar. The doraani serving drinks smiled an especially toothy grin at me, which I found odd, and before I was really aware of it, I had somehow gone down the spiral stairs, woven through the sea of swaying bodies, and was at the door.

The clammy night air was a slight improvement over the smoke-soaked nightclub atmosphere and I took a deep welcoming breath, letting my eyes drift closed.

I had a hard time tearing them apart, and when I did, my headache increased tenfold.

I also remarked that little stars had begun to dance in behind my retinas every time I took a step.

The part of my mind that was still awake screamed that something was wrong, but it felt to me that my brain was shrouded in cotton. A thick, comfortable barrier that protected me from the hell that my life would be once I told the elf that I had lost his sister…now what was her name again?

I pondered this question as I stumbled into the alley beside the bar. Alley beside the bar? Why ever had I gone there?

Come to think of it, I wasn't in much of a state to walk at all… someone must have helped me there. Gee…I didn't think that there were many charitable people left in this world… Maybe it was that red-eyed guy…Seth. Yeah, that was his name. He seemed like a nice fellow. He had been talking to me about protecting me. Who from?

Oh, that's right. He wanted to protect me from Nadesh…Nadeshi…what was it again… Or was it the elf…

I thought it was more him…in fact…I though I heard him talking…

"Now…we have…it before…"

And another voice was answering.

"Are you sure…her?"

"Yes, I'm sure it's…But we don't have time for this right… We have to…"

"Now?"

"Yes, you fu…Before she wakes up! If we can't extract…it'll…late!"

The pitch in their voices had risen considerably as my mind swam the waves of consciousness, sometimes slipping below the surface, back into warm, blissful darkness.

"But how do we know she knows?" asked the second voice.

"I just saw…leave" snapped the first. "There's no way she didn't…She can't possibly!"

"But-"

"We'll know soon enough!"

"It's too early!" pleaded the second in a panic.

"Nonsense! Come on, let's move…over there. Come on…"

Once again I felt myself being jerked to my feet. It was dark. I couldn't tell whether my eyes were open or not, but the fog was starting to lift from my mind and I realised, bit by bit, what trouble I was in. I heard more clearly now: the two voices, the scuff of my boots on the ground, the twitter of some sewer-creature not far away. I still didn't know if my eyes were open or not, or even if it was in my power to open them at all. Another wave of dizziness invited me back into unconsciousness and my aching head gladly accepted, until a third voice jerked my mind back awake.

It was clear and cool and seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"Now what do you two think you're going to do with my friend Whisper?"

"Oh so you two are now on first-name basis, are you?" this voice had an elven accent.

"Let her be; she knows nothing. I've seen to that, to keep her out of trouble."

"Why Seth," mocked the elven voice. I was almost sure now that it was him. Nadeshiko's 'brother'. "Fancy seeing you here!"

That greeting rang a bell.

Seth paused, but his voice showed little surprise.

"Atrahasis. I should have known."

"You keep fine company, as usual, Seth. And you have excellent choice when picking women to protect," he sneered.

I finally managed to open my eyes and still found only darkness. My eyelashes however, brushed against fabric and so I knew (with yet another realisation of the extent of the crap I was in) that I was blindfolded.

"What are you saying, Atrahasis?" said Seth from far above, his tone suddenly icy.

Atrahasis? Why was he calling the elf by that name? Wasn't his name Delon Parn?

"See for yourself, old fool. It's her. Or has your precious blackbird not informed you of that fact?"

"Her? You don't mean…"

The one called Atrahasis laughed.

"Come see for yourself!"

I heard the scuff of boots and the sound of fabric swishing. I felt spindly hands work at the back of my head and closed my eyes not a second too soon. Atrahasis had removed my blindfold and I wanted to be sure they all I though I was still down for the count.

"Come on, Seth!" taunted the elf. "We won't bite you!"

He seemed to find this very funny and laughed a great deal.

I kept my eyes closed.

At length I heard the rush of air and felt a breeze on my face, as the tap of boots on pavement indicated that someone had just landed beside me.

I knew it was Seth.

"You see now which damsel you've chosen to protect, Ô knight?" mocked Atrahasis, from much further away this time.

"Though I daresay," he giggled. "She'll cause you more distress than you'll save her from!"

A shiver ran down my spine as a hand slid over my cheek and to the back of my neck, gentle as air. Another grasped me around my shoulders and lifted me into a sitting position. I fought to keep my eyes closed when I beam of light flicked across my face.

Seth's hands tensed on the sleeve of my shirt but he said nothing. I heard the elf's voice from yet farther.

"Keep her if she knows nothing, then!" he laughed. "Try, just try to keep her out of my way! Good luck, Sir Knight!"

Atrahasis' hoots of laughter drifted off into the night. Barely audible above the muffled music of the nightclub, Seth muttered,

"Bastard."

And I opened my eyes.

Seth's face hovered above, and his hand was still at the back of my neck, holding my face up to the light. He looked mildly surprised, and not quite amused, although he still smiled when he said,

"I didn't think those doraani drugs could keep you down for very long. To think those twits thought they would last long enough for them to…"

"Wha-" was all I had time to say before he grabbed me tighter and it felt as though I had almost lost consciousness again.

But I knew I was still awake, even though I got the curious sensation that I was flying…

Just as the dizziness was at its worst, I felt a slight thump and I came back from whatever brink I had been on during my strange "trip".

Seth was gracious enough to stand me up, even though my legs were a little watery and I soon wound up on my butt.

From that point of view I saw that I was on a roof.

We were bathed in the red-orange glow of the coal-fires of a titanic factory overlooking us. Below, green werelight flooded the empty streets, where several pieces of heavy machinery stood, waiting for the next day's workers to come wake them up. I saw the lights of the dance club a few blocks away and figured I must indeed have fainted for him to carry me this far without me realising it. My head had almost cleared the cobwebs that the elf had put there, and the grainy shingles of the roof I sat on were refreshingly clear to my sense of touch. Seth stood where the edge of the building met the kilometre-thick honeycomb wall, with his back against that small part of the support structure that kept Scherazade from collapsing. The watery werelights on the level's ceiling looked almost like the shine of the moons.

Seth's gaze roamed around the factory, his red eyes eerie, almost glowing with their own light.

"You really are going to cause me problems, you know that?"

It was the first time he spoke to me in an honest tone, with no mockery or humour, without addressing me as some ignorant child. It was plain on his face that he was as confused as I had been all that evening.

He looked at me and smiled, the mirth still not touching his voice.

"What am I going to do with you now?"

I couldn't quite figure out the appropriate thing to say to this, so I just looked at him.

"Atrahasis was right," he muttered.

I started; the name he had spoken reminded me of all the questions I had to ask him.

"Who is this Atrahasis guy?" I asked.

It was his turn to jump; I guessed he had forgotten I had a tongue.

"Atrahasis…is an old friend of mine…"

"…And?" I prodded. Seth just looked at me. I almost made the blunder of asking him what the elf wanted with me, but I held my tongue in time to recall that I was supposed to have been out cold at the time.

"What does he have to do with all this?" I said instead.

"He works for gov-" he began, then tsked disgustedly, as if he had said too much.

So he works for governor Mordred, I thought.

Seth glanced at me sharply, as if he blamed me for his blunder, but continued,

"Atrahasis is one that wishes harm to Nadeshiko. Leave it at that for now."

"For now?" I asked, with more than a note of amusement in my voice.

Seth merely shrugged, and said rather flippantly,

"Who knows what you might learn? You are a special woman…"

He forestalled my incoming barrage of questions by taking the four steps that separated us and kneeling by my side.

"Whisper…"

For the second time his voice was perfectly serious.

"…it's late and you're in trouble. Soon, I'll be too. Let's both go home and rest before Atrahasis and his cronies find us and force me to turn the street into a bloodbath."

It dawned on me that he was very serious. I swallowed nervously.

"But how am I supposed to get down…?" I said somewhat timidly.

The killer vanished from his face and he smiled again, moving toward me quite suddenly.

My heart almost leapt out of my throat as his grabbed me. I wasn't quite sure what I was afraid of, except maybe the bloodbath remarks he had just made…

I have to admit that being part of a mass-murder is not something that I was really in the mood to do, especially since I wouldn't be the one mass-murdering.

But Seth didn't turn me into sushi, even though I knew he was perfectly capable of it.

He instead picked me up, cradling me against his chest and jumped off the building.

By the time I realised what he was doing, air was whistling in my ears and pulling on my hair. My first reflex was to squeeze my eyes shut and my second, to grab my red-eyed pseudo-saviour around the neck and hang on for dear life.

Seth landed with all the grace of a cat, and I barely even felt the shock of landing that told me I could open my eyes.

"Wha-wha-wha…" I stammered. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

Seth took me by the shoulders and turned me towards the nearest train station.

"I'm escorting you to the train," he said suavely, nudging me along.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he shoved me forward and marched me past the bar and towards the station.

I was suitably annoyed.

I mean, who the hell was he to tell me what to do? Seth was treating me like a child and it just got on my nerves. Still walking jerkily along, I turned my head back to yell at him.

"What do you think you're-" was all I had time to say, before he clapped his hand over my mouth, yanked my head back until I faced forward again and dragged me into an alley.

"Whisper!" he hissed, his voice cracking like a whip. "You idiot! Don't you get the trouble you're in! Do you have any idea what kind of contacts Atrahasis has!"

I stopped thrashing for a second and waited to see if he would enlighten me on that particular fact, which he did not. He just turned me around and took my face in his hands.

"Your…life…is…in…danger," he stressed every syllable, staring at me with those blood-red eyes as if searching for a glimmer of comprehension.

I smacked his fingers off my face and whirled away from him.

"I know I'm in trouble!" I snapped.

"So act like it!" he said hotly. "You aren't invincible. If you don't stop being so bloody reckless-"

I glared at him in the alley's gloom.

"You're going to get yourself killed!"

I fought to keep my voice down as my temper rose.

"I know what 'danger' is! Stop treating me like a child and tell me how to get out of this crap!"

"That's easy, you foolish girl! Butt out! Forget about Nadeshiko. Forget about Atrahasis! And get the hell out of here!"

That was it. Before I even knew what was happening, my fist had moved of its own volition and had cracked itself over Seth's jaw.

He blinked and looked at me blankly, silent as he always was when I found him most infuriating. I grabbed him by the clasp of his cloak and wrenching him down to eye level with me.

"My life is already on the line here! If I don't find this tigrae bitch, I'll go back to jail and be turned into antimag fuel! It's not by butting out that I'll save myself this time!"

I shoved him back and stalked away. He let me go without a word.

"And I can find a train station on my own, thanks!" I shouted back to the shadows.

It wasn't until I had reached the platform that the pain in my hand hit me. I looked down to see my precious left swollen, purple, and getting worse.

"By the motherbleeping trinity," I swore, trying to flex my fingers. "What is that guy's face made out of?"

A whistle and the roar of a train engine called me from my frustrated thoughts. The Number Nine rolled into the station with a cloud of coal smoke and steam.

Cussing and muttering, and wishing I had my hat to complain to, I got on the train and stared vacantly out the window. I was the only one in car again, but even so, I gripped my purse, and the gun inside, closer.

A while later, another whistle shrieked and the Number Nine lurched forward with a groan. I glanced down at my maimed hand and back out the window distractedly. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Seth stood on the platform, looking straight at me.

In one hand, he held a shotgun, its cartridges clattering to the cobblestone ground. In the other, a very unconscious doraani bartender.

It dawned on me ho the bartender had intended that shotgun for. The bastard had saved me again it seemed.

He smiled at me, then shouted something that was lost to me over the sound of the train.

I flung myself at the sealed window and pressed my nose against the glass. Whatever anger had been in me before was suddenly replaced with fear. Fear and at the same time, a sort of trust. The bastard had saved me again.

"Thanks," I mouthed to the window as the train left the station.

Seth disappeared around a bend in the tracks that led back to Southeast Scherazade, and home.


	6. Hindsight

Whisper - Atrahasis

(Chapter 5)

I fair threw myself into bed as soon as I crossed the threshold of my apartment, not bothering with removing my clothes, makeup and tending to my mangled left fist. I fell into a deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

In short, when I woke up, I was a total wreck. The only high point of the morning was that the night had been blissfully free of my usual bad dreams. Except for one very strange one where I was walking into work and I stumbled over Marcy and Atrahasis doing the nasty on my office desk. Let it be said that I woke up in a cold sweat after that one.

The only thing that worried me more was the pain in my hand. I noticed that it had doubled in size since last night and was now roughly the shape of a large water balloon. It felt about the same too, if I didn't account for the throbbing pain. To remedy the situation I dunked it in cold water for as long as it took me to scrub off the previous night's gothic makeup with my free hand.

After I finished washing my face, it began to dawn on me that cold water wasn't doing a whole hell of a lot. At least I could move my fingers now, so I hadn't broken anything.

Jeez, I thought disgustedly. To think I almost broke my hand punching some guy in the face. What is the world coming to?

Stupid question, as usual.

As soon as I had had a nice long shower to wash away last night's filth, I scrounged around in my medicine chest for a while and managed to find some gauze to make an acceptable bandage with. When I was done taping up my hand, I got dressed properly and set off for the office, in the hopes that I wouldn't find Marcy and the Elf sprawled all over my desk.

Yuck, was all I had to say to that particular thought.

Marcy greeted me warmly when I came in, babbling on about what had happened since I started looking for the tigrae, about 24 hours beforehand. I tuned out when she started on bills and fines and lawsuits, as is my custom, but I came back down to earth when she got into the day's calls and future cases.

"…So yeah, that's about it," she said, smacking a stick of nicotine gum between her teeth. "Business is kinda slow these days, so nobody really called for a case. But there were two calls yesterday."

"Oh?" I asked, gaining a little hope.

"Yeah. One was from the cops. Yer benefactor's check cleared and you're off the hook! Inn't that jus' the grrreatest!" she squealed.

"Yeah," I muttered distantly, already long lost in thoughts of doom.

So that was it. Out of the frying pan and into the antimag furnace, as I had oft said to my hat. I was in the clear with Johnny Law, but it had cost me a deal with a green-haired devil. Now Atrahasis had me in his net, and I wondered if I wouldn't have been better off just disappearing to level 75 for a century or two. Even down there, where the cops fear to tread, I bet I'd last longer that in the clutches of Mr. Elf.

"Boss?" queried Marcy, a touch of worry on her round face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I'm just a little on the tired side. I'm fine. Really."

She looked at me doubtfully, but continued with the second caller.

"So this guy called around three in the mornin' an' he jus' lefta message on the machine, y'see. But see, I didna unnerstand what he was talkin' about, so I jus' left it there. See?"

My secretary pressed the "replay" button on our answering machine.

I heard the customary high-pitched beep and then I froze.

It was a sound-only call, and the location was confidential, but I recognised the voice.

It was Seth.

"Whisper," he said over the static of the recording. "I hope tonight showed you how extensive Atrahasis' network of contacts is. Not even those closest to you can really be trusted. No one I know of has ever resisted one form or another of his persuasions. Please, girl, for the sake of your life and those closest to you, turn your back to this whole mess and go live a safe life! If I see you again, I'll be forced to use my own persuasion to keep you away. I might also just leave you to those that wish you harm. Or worse."

At the end of a prolonged silence, there was a quick "take care of yourself" and the message clicked off.

I looked at Marcy, who had turned almost as ashen as me, and then at the answering machine, as if it were a bomb about to go off.

"I guess I do kinda unnerstand…" my friend trailed off. "Boss, is this case puttin' you in trouble?"

"Sort of, Marcy…" I mumbled. "Sort of…"

I looked back at her and down at my feet.

"You know what," I said, trying to shake off the doom and gloom. "I could use a good cup of caffeine. What do you say?"

My secretary also seemed to brighten.

"Sure, boss, whatever you say!"

We strolled down the street to the local café and sat ourselves down to two steaming caffeines. It was about then that she noticed my bandaged hand.

"Whut ever did happen t'you?" she asked with concern.

"Oh, nothing," I said, as nonchalantly I could manage. "I met a guy last night."

Sometimes I think Marcy must believe that I'm from another planet altogether. This was one of those times. She raised an eyebrow and stared at me, with a look that said "if you say so" and took a sip of caffeine.

"So," she said at length.

"So what?" I answered warily.

"What's this guy's name? Do I know him?"

In her day, Marcy has acquainted me with more single men than I have naturally met during my millennia-spanning lifetime. I chuckled into my cup.

"No, you don't know him. His name is Seth."

"…And?"

"And what?"

"And and, boss, don't play innocent with me! What's this guy like?"

I almost choked on the idea. Me and Seth? 'What's he like?' 'Oh, nice, I suppose…when he's not trying to kill me for my own good, or intimidate me, or scare me out of my wits…'

Instead I just smiled through gritted teeth.

"He's…he's nice." I said, forcing the sarcasm out of my voice. "He…uh…he seems really concerned for my safety and…um…"

"I don't care none 'bout that! What's this guy look like? Is he a big 'ole hunka beefcake, or some innellectual-type guy?"

This time I couldn't stop myself. This was just so ridiculous I snorted back half my cup in a gale of laughter and proceeded to drown in the caffeine that had found its way up my nose. The spasm ended in a fit of coughing and hacking, as the last of the thick black liquid worked its way out of my sinuses. Marcy seemed to take it as a sign of bashfulness and pressed the issue further.

Not wanting to have her hound me for the rest of the week, I decided to deliver

. "Seth is…he's a pretty strange guy. He's not really a bookie type…" Strange how I thought of my aching hand at this. "And yeah, he's pretty handsome. He's got dark brown hair, sort of longish and a little curly… and it always falls into his face…" I proceeded to dish out a few more basic details about my pseudo-saviour, leaving out the colour of his eyes.

I didn't want to go spooking my secretary.

Marcy seemed satisfied and approved my taste in men (as I silently laughed myself silly in my head) and together we succeeded in banishing the nasty atmosphere that Seth's vidophone call had cast over the morning.

When I got back into my office, I was all good cheer, strong will and determination. I felt like nothing and nobody could keep me from this case.

That lasted about three and a half seconds.

Tops.

All because the fake-leather chair at my desk was turned away from the door.

I didn't even notice it until the offending piece of furniture swivelled around to reveal the Elf.

I said something rather nasty, rather loudly.

"That's not a nice way to say hello to the man who saved your life," he remarked, rising.

I was sort of caught up in hacking and spluttering with rage, so I gave no answer to that. "Saviour" was not a term I wanted to tag on Atrahasis.

"I noticed the dent in my savings account, so it would seem that your troubles with the law are over."

Something about the way he spoke suggested that my troubles with him had just begun.

"I just came in to check on you and see how my money is being put to good use."

"Oh yeah," I said. "Things are going great. I almost found her last night, but I ran into a spot of trouble and she got away."

Like you wouldn't know you big jackass. You were there.

"She did, did she?" His voice was freaking me out. It was too soft, too calm…almost dangerous.

"I apologise, Miss Firimar."

That really wasn't what I had expected

. "Say what?" I replied.

Atrahasis grimaced slightly.

"My…er…overzealous assistant. He may have done you some harm…"

His colourless eyes were piercing.

"…If it hadn't been for your knight in shining leather."

My brain was having quite a time digesting this. But after a minute of stunned silence, it dawned on me.

The elf had just confessed to being in cahoots with the doraani barman.

"What the hell are you…?"

"Don't be stupid about this, Firimar," he snapped, suddenly by my side. "Unless you're a lot dumber than I pegged you to be."

"What the hell…?" I repeated, the puzzle pieces flying around in my head.

"Come on, you stupid bitch, Seth himself told me about it."

"Why did you… Why the hell did you hire that elf to kill me when you…" I very nearly spilt it that I had been awake when he had nabbed me in the alley. Catching my self, I said instead,

"When you…you want me to find your sister!"

"Don't worry your poor silly little head with that, dear."

"Don't worry? What do you take me for? You hire me to find Nadeshiko, and then you hire a doraani to poison me and when that doesn't work you just get him to shoot me!"

"Actually the shooting part was his own misguided initiative," muttered the Elf.

"So why poison me when you need me to find your sister?" I exploded. "There is something seriously wrong with your logic Atraha-"

Oops.

The Elf had also caught my slip. I couldn't have been more obvious if I had bit him in the ass when I lay 'unconcsious' in the alley. His eyes narrowed and for a moment, he looked almost like he respected me.

Then I knew I was in trouble.

"Atrahasis?" he inquired in his mild, dangerous voice. "Well now, I suppose you aren't as incredibly stupid as you look. How did you find out? Really I am very curious."

"It's a secret."

"Is it now? I just love secrets! But I must tell you, I'm very good at finding them out."

"Really," I said flatly.

"Really," he agreed with a grin. "And I can read you like a book, little girl! You don't even have to tell me…"

I paled; hoping against hope that he hadn't figured out that I had been awake during his conversation with Seth.

"It was your knight, wasn't it. Seth that told you my name, am I right?"

This was just perfect! I let my face slide into a mask of shock and guilt. I was betting that the overconfident prick would take this as a 'yes'.

"Ha! I knew it!" he crowed.

Bingo.

"So why hire that elf to drug me?" I said almost innocently.

Atrahasis laughed loudly at this, and I was almost glad. I didn't really expect him to dish out the details on why he had hired me and then tried to do whatever he had tried to do to me behind the dance club. And his laughter helped me eke out another tiny advantage on the vastly uneven playing field.

The Elf was a prick. A smart, cunning and very persuasive prick, to be sure. That much I had learned from my very first encounters with him. But I was starting to see that he had an ego the size of the golden moon… and that might be useful in the future. Assuming that I didn't manage to boot him out of my thrice-damned life.

He finished chuckling and theatrically wiped a tear from his eye

. "Oh, Whisper, why did I do such a thing?" he hooted. "Why? That's my secret!"

"I should have guessed," I muttered. "Now would you mind getting out of my office so I can continue to search for your 'sister'?"

At that moment I realised I had probably said something wrong, because in the blink of an eye, the smile had vanished from the Elf's face, and he was back to being the cold, arrogant Atrahasis I had known last night.

"Leave?" he cooed. "But I'm not finished with you."

That nasty, dangerous look reappeared in his eyes and he stepped towards me. I didn't like the smell of this. I hopped back, trying not to look as nervous as I felt.

"So what do you want?" I asked warily.

I really didn't want to hear the answer, but I did want to forestall whatever nastiness he had in store for me.

"I have a few things I'd like to know."

"Oh? So why don't you ask me instead of beating around the support pylon?"

"Because," he snarled, lunging forward and grabbing my bandaged hand. "I want to be sure you'll answer!"

He squeezed.

Before I really knew what was happening, I was yelping in pain and had been forced down onto my knees in front of Atrahasis, who was still in the process of busting my already mangled hand.

"Dammit!" I shouted, coupled with a few other choice expletives. "Let me the hell go! I'll tell you your &?#& truth!"

"I doubt that very much," he laughed, flicking a switchblade out of his pocket, and at my throat. I would have glared his eyes out, had I not already been wincing at the exquisite pain in my hand.

"Now, where were we?"

I watched the knife flicker back and forth in front of my eyes. I guessed this was not going to be pleasant.

"So…" he smiled. "Question number one. Where is Nadeshiko?"

A quick squeeze to prove the point.

I swore before answering

. "I don't know."

"Of course you do. My sources saw you with Seth. Where is she?"

Another, harder, squeeze to my swollen hand.

"I don't know!" I screamed. "Seth didn't tell me! Dammit, Atrahasis, I'm working for you! Why the hell would I not tell you where your &?#& sister is!"

The elf laughed.

"You work for me? Whisper, in case it hasn't dawned on you, you don't work for me! You're just a puppet! My puppet!"

I felt the knife prick into the skin of my neck. I started to get nervous.

"And I want you to be a good puppet and do what I say."

The knife bit into my throat, I felt a trickle of blood run down to my chest.

"Tell me everything you learned while talking with your Knight."

I pulled as far away from the switchblade as I could, which wasn't saying much, since the elf still had me by the hand, and on the ground.

"I'm way-ting!" he sang gleefully.

"Seth didn't tell me anything last night," I growled. "He said that I should butt out, that Nadeshiko didn't need to be found, didn't want to be found and that if I kept on looking for her, that I'd be killed."

The Elf seemed rather disappointed at this. He squeezed my injured hand hard enough to make me yell out in pain.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" I yelped. "Now let me the hell go so I can go find that tigrae bitch!"

Much to my surprise, I received a slap across the face for that comment. Atrahasis let go of my left fist and instead, jerked me to my feet by my tie. I didn't remember ever having seen him look so utterly furious. He was trembling with rage, his greenish skin splotched with red. Something told me I shouldn't have said that.

"NEVER…EVER…SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT HER!" he shrieked in my face, flecks of froth spraying all over me. Without further ado, he dumped me on the ground and stormed out of the office.

I heard Marcy shriek as he passed her, and the glass on the door shatter as he slammed it on his way out.

I let out a deep sigh and slumped back against my desk. I put a finger to my throat and it came away sticky and red. I figured that there was too much adrenaline running through me to actually allow me to feel the pain. Soon enough, however, my neck began to burn and my left hand to throb anew.

My secretary burst into my office a second later, worry stamped plain on her face.

"Bow-oss! Boss what happened t'you! Did that man hurt you?"

I looked up at her, rolling my eyes

. "Of course not, Marcy," I said, tasting blood in my mouth. "The Elf and I just had a nice, civilised conversation, that's all."

I rose to my feet, not really in the mood to banter.

"I'm tired," I told her. "And I need time to think some things over. I'm going home and I think you should too, in case my friend decides to come back."

Marcy nodded, wide-eyed.

Just as I reached the door, I heard her breath catch, as if she had stopped herself from speaking.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"Inn't what's happenin' jus' like what that man said on the message las' night?

" This brought me up short. I had never suspected the two to be in cahoots… was it possible?

Snippets of what Atrahasis had said came fluttering back to me.

"…Seth himself told me…"

And Seth's vidophone message…

…and how he had warned me that no one he knew has stood up to Atrahasis' persuasions…

I walked over the shattered glass from the window and left the office without even acknowledging my secretary's question.

By the time I got home, there were no answers in sight, and yet more questions. I watched myself tape up my hand again, clean up the blood from the cut in my neck and the split in my lip, and put powder on the bruise that was forming on my cheek.

Seth might be Nadeshiko's bodyguard, I thought. If so, he knows where she is and just doesn't want to tell Atrahasis, or me. But that doesn't explain why he'd be having a nice chummy conversation with the Elf, as was implied. Or maybe Atrahasis lied about the whole thing… No, he knew too much about what had gone on between Seth and I to have not spoken to him. And if that's true, it means Seth and Atrahasis are working together to find Nadeshiko, and Seth really doesn't know where she is. That explains the conversations the two had supposedly had, and all the threats of bodily violence that I've been receiving.

Actually it doesn't really, since the threats have come from both of them for different reasons. And then why would Seth send me a message telling me to butt out? If he's working with the Elf, he should want me to find Nadeshiko… unless my role in this sick little play isn't to find her at all…

But then what?

My thoughts had been running that same loop-the-loop since I had talked to Atrahasis those few hours ago. Nothing was making sense in this case. If I thought up a theory that explained Seth's behaviour, then everything that Atrahasis was doing was illogical.

After about two more hours of thinking, I made a big decision.

If I wanted to get to the bottom of this case, there was only one thing left to do. If I just wanted to get the Elf off my back, as had been my original intention, there was still only one thing to do.

I had to find Nadeshiko.

And if I wanted to survive the week, I would have to do it fast.

I didn't do much the rest of the day, besides perusing the list of Nadeshiko sightings that Marcy had compiled and looking nervously out the window for either Seth or the Elf. I was too edgy to eat, and even had I not been, the only food in my apartment was a jar of synthetic mustard. I didn't really feel like calling take-out from my favorite tigrae restaurant, since I had heard enough about that species to last me quite a while.

So basically I sat around my bedroom in the warmest, comfiest pyjamas I could lay my hands on, read and reread a list of addresses and worried until midnight. I suppose I shouldn't wonder about what happened next.

I turned off the lights and

My eyes closed and opened.

The alarm clock by my bed flashed twelve twenty-six.

I yawned and wriggled my toes, halfway to dreamland and my escape from reality.

My eyes closed and opened.

The clock read twelve twenty-seven.

My eyes closed and opened…

…And I was on a bridge.

I blinked again, but the image stayed.

I looked around numbly. Yup. I was on a bridge.

It stood between two support pylons, hanging lonely over the void. Smoke and steam rose from either side of me; and green light filtered up from an antimag plant levels and levels below. Gears clanked with an echo and the ticking hands of a huge clock sounded off the seconds.

I felt something strange. A current running through me.

Like magic…like electricity…like…nothing I had ever felt before. It was all around me; and a part of me. It made my hands tingle… And it made me want to cry.

Then I saw a figure appear out of the steam. He walked with slow steps, with the hunched shoulders of one who holds a burden of heavy guilt.

He looked up, and straight through me.

It was Seth.

He looked sad. It occurred to me that I had never seen him look really sad.

He stopped in the middle of the bridge and spread his arms. A gesture of apology? But whom was he apologizing to?

I became aware of someone, or something, shouting in my head. The tingle in my limbs became a jolt, as if the juice had suddenly been turned up.

Wind blew and I screamed. The pain inside me was unbearable. There was anger in the air.

Seth just stood, his black cloak being whipped mercilessly by the cold air. He still looked so sad. So sad…

And then there was water.

I don't know where it came from, but all of a sudden, it was there. It was falling…it was rain. Rain… in Scherazade. Rain where even the sun no longer shined. Angry rain. It pelted down, chilly, stinging. It was hail, hail the size of marbles clattering on the cobblestones of the bridge. And still there was the wind. I noticed that the columns of steam were not moving. It was as if the wind were only on the bridge, driven…driven towards Seth.

He didn't look peaceful anymore. He was still sad, but now he was despairing. And in pain. His red gaze crossed mine and the look in them made my heart want to break. He shouted something over the gales. I only barely understood.

"Kill me then, Whisper!" he screamed, anguished. "The trinity knows I deserve it!"

The storm stopped. My eyes welled up with tears. Seth stood gasping in a puddle, bruised and scraped by the ice. He looked back at - or was it through? -me and smiled, serene. He swayed and fell to the ground, immobile.

For my part, I collapsed in a heap on the cobblestones, and the only water that touched me was that of my tears.

I woke up in a cold sweat, sobbing uncontrollably.

I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't understand what I was feeling.

"It was just a dream," I told myself, clutching my knees to my chest. The thought did little to comfort me.

"Seth…" I whispered, sniffling back tears.

It was just a dream. Just a dream! Let it be just a dream.

But gods, it had felt so real…


	7. The Stars in the Sky

Whisper - Hindsight

(Chapter 6)

Ah, pain!

Someone once said to me, 'Pain is the one thing that reminds us that we are alive. If it hurts, be happy, since you're still living.'

That morning when I woke up, I think I was more alive than I'd ever been!

My head hurt. My hand hurt. My neck hurt. My cheek hurt.

And most of all, my poor brain hurt!

It was tired of working that damn illogical case and it had been a while since it had had a really good night's sleep. One missing person and two loose cannons…not a good mix, I thought while stretching.

After I was sure I had broken my spine at least twice, I treated myself to another wonderfully painful experience: getting dressed. The colour of the day, and the one that best suited my mood, was black. I was determined not to stand out in the crowd more than I had to, so clothes were simple and sober. I tucked my silver lock up into my hat (I was so glad to have him back on my head) and, grabbing my address list on the way out, left my apartment in the search for breakfast and Nadeshiko.

A stop by the office, a muffin, a vidophone call to Marcy and a train ride to Northeast Level 28 later, I stood beside what looked an awful lot like a dump. Scrap metal and junk of all manner littered the sidewalk and road in front of a store that looked to be a mechanic's workshop.

I checked my list, to make sure I hadn't gotten the place wrong.

Nope, this was it.

Doctor Daisuke Hiroshito's Medical Clinic. "Serving Scherazade's needs for over seventy years."

Whatever.

I pushed open the door and found myself in front of the strangest doctor's office I had ever seen.

Strange machines littered the waiting area; a series of twisting pipes, gears, fans, springs and tubes, arranged in a way I couldn't even follow. Parts of it hissed and let out bursts of steam, others spun and whirled and I could even see a marble rolling down one of the glass tubes. I was beginning to wonder if this was a doc's office or some kind day-care for mechanical geniuses. There was no one at the beaten-up table I took to be the reception desk, and no one waiting either.

So far, it was blindingly clear that this wasn't your run-of-the-mill medical clinic.

It looked more like it had been a refuge for crooks on the lam, or at least a recent meeting place for 'scatterbrains anonymous'. Here and there I could spot an actual medical instrument, but most of the junk that littered the clinic looked like leftovers from a heavy-casualty war. I picked up a strange object that looked suspiciously like a crystal ball and frowned. A heavy-casualty war involving shamanism and fortune telling, I guess.

I became aware of a noise coming from another room. It was a fizzing and crackling sort of sound. The kind that a welding torch makes. There were also two muffled voices and then a thunk and a clank, as some piece of machinery was snapped into place. I slowly poked my head into the room the noises were coming from.

Strangely enough, I couldn't see anybody.

There was the ever-present pile of junk, a desk, a caffeine machine, a few hospital beds with shower curtains drawn around them, and under a stark neon-white werelight was a giant machine I couldn't even guess the use for.

The noise seemed to be coming from inside the machine.

I stepped closer to see what exactly was going on.

I realised that it was because the contraption in question was rather like a giant can: cylindrical and hollow. It was rather lopsided, and had several strange bits poking out here and there (like some kind of weird bellow and a metal rack with several bags of blood hanging off it) but the basic shape was pretty can-like. I leaned toward the smoked-glass door to see if I could find one of the voices I had heard before. But I was in for a surprise and a half. The second I got to within a half step of the junk, I came face to face with a gigantic pair of blinking blue eyes. I reacted in the normal manner.

I screamed and jumped out of my skin.

The disembodied pair of peepers did the same, and I saw that the eyes were in fact attached to a pair of goggles, that in turn were attached to a large nose, bushy white eyebrows and a large quantity of stark white hair. Upon closer inspection, I saw a very small mouth, forming a perfect 'O' and a forehead so wrinkled it looked like a piece of paper that had been folded, refolded and crumpled as well. Then there were tiny little arms, large hands, a white laboratory coat and a pair of glossy black shoes.

The whole thing stood about three and a half feet tall, and had just popped out of a panel on the bottom of the machine.

"Doctor Hiroshito?" I asked.

The goggled eyes blinked.

"And you are?" he said in a squeaky voice.

"Whisper."

"And how can I help you?"

I wondered for a moment whether I should opt for outright dishonesty or being nice and telling the truth...

He looked like a nice enough guy…

"I'm looking for someone…" I said rather hesitantly.

"Oh?" said the Doc in a trilling voice. "I'm very sorry, but all my patients' identities are confidential."

I gave him the puppy-eye treatment (not that Doc Hiroshito had ever seen a puppy in his life; but you get the idea).

"I'm afraid it's rather important, Doctor…"

Hiroshito hopped off his current project and began to busy himself in another corner of the room. It was kind of strange…this was a doctor's office and all I had seen so far were pieces of scrap metal. Not a single person…

I decided to plunge in.

"Have you seen a girl named Nadeshiko?" I asked suddenly.

The effect was astonishing.

The doc uttered a single, surprised syllable and all of a sudden tools were scattered all around him.

I peered curiously at him as his face turned white, then slightly green. His mouth worked furiously for a moment without sound, until I listened hard and realized he was, in fact, stuttering.

Finally, he looked at me through his three-inch thick goggles with absolute terror in his eyes.

I raised an eyebrow, inviting him to speak his mind.

"I'm sorry miss!" he burst out. "I don't know who she is!"

"Really?" I asked, more than a little doubtful.

The Doc, trembling, bustled away.

"I don't know her!" he insisted. "Please, leave, I cannot help you!"

Before I could stop him, the tiny doctor had scooted between my legs and had shut himself into the office behind me. Bewildered, I turned around and tapped lightly on the door.

I sighed to the door that had just slammed in my face. Anybody else would have the poor old guy on his knees by now, confessing how he stole a syntomato in fourth grade, but not me. I couldn't convince a street sign to tell me which street I was on.

"Go away!" the doctor trilled.

Why, I thought. Why, of all the subjects in Private Detective School, was interrogation the only one I failed?

I turned my thoughts from the unfairness of life to the scuffle and low voices I suddenly heard, and the slap of a shutting door.

I called out once more to the Doc, but he didn't answer. I figured he went out the back door.

I hurried out of the clinic, thinking that there might still be a chance for me to catch him. But outside there was no sign of the little guy.

What a bust, was my only thought.

So how delighted do you think I was when I heard footsteps in the alley, and saw none other than Seth walking away!

The gambler in me chuckled and I decided to follow him.

Hindsight being 20/20, I probably should have guessed that my powers of stealth were not equal to Seth's, but at the time I was eager for any lead, however slim.

So I tailed him through twisting alleys and bustling streets, through the dwarf junkyards and the tigrae markets of the level…

Seth didn't once look back as he wound his way through the streets of Level 28, and he walked all the way across the Northeast Sector.

We ended up in the abandoned industrial sector in the shadow of a run-down warehouse. I watched Seth from the shadows between two buildings as he crossed the cobblestone street and disappeared behind the warehouse. I waited, counting to three before slinking across the street and through the shadows after him. My stomach grumbled more noisily than I would have liked and I checked my pocket watch.

Damn, it was already one in the afternoon! I had been following Seth for hours!

And if you don't want to lose him now, one of the voices in my head told me. You might want to start tailing him again!

"Whatever you say," I whispered to myself, before pressing on.

I inched towards the alley behind the warehouse, and poked my head out to scout for Seth.

He was gone.

Swearing inwardly, I slipped back into the shadows to figure out what I was going to do now. That was when I noticed an open door.

I couldn't believe my luck! I could see Nadeshiko!

She had barely aged since the Elf's photos had been taken, therefore I recognized her at once. She looked about seventeen or eighteen, and was dressed to fit her favorite nightclub. She wore a short, skin-tight black synth-leather dress completed by black leather gloves and black leather boots. Her lackeys were also clad in the infamous material…

Damn I was getting sick of seeing that black stuff all over the place!

"Holy bleeping Trinity!" I gasped, louder than I had intended.

Had I seen right?

One of Nadeshiko's crones had grabbed her by the elbow and jerked her into a chair. What the hell was going on?

Another black leather goon had pulled some rope out of nowhere and was now tying the tigrae girl into the seat.

I was right! Swearing some more, I fumbled for my gun and started forward, preparing to bust in and save the girl from her attackers…or something along those lines anyway.

But by the time I had taken a bare five steps into my headlong run, a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed me by the tie. I managed an inarticulate squawk as the tie choked off my air supply and I reeled backward from the shock. Whoever had me by the throat (I was beginning to have my suspicions), flung me with maddening ease into the side of the warehouse. The precious little air I had left in my lungs went out with a whoosh, leaving me coughing and spluttering in the warehouse shadow.

While I was busy frantically sucking in oxygen, those same hands grabbed me roughly round the shoulders and lifted me to my feet.

"Seth…" I wheezed between two gasping breaths. "You're…a real…bastard…you know that?"

My knees gave out and I slumped back down. Red-Eyes kept me in a relatively upright position, and scowled.

"And you, Whisper, really don't learn, do you?" In a fluid move, I was tipped off my feet and heaved onto his back.

I knew that there was nothing I could do to free myself, so I used this time to get my breath back. Seth walked almost a block away from Nadeshiko and plight before he set me down.

As soon as I was back on my feet, I tried to go back to the cat girl, loudly voicing my opinion to Seth, who held me firmly in place.

"What the hells do you think you're doing?" I screamed in his face. "Nadeshiko's in trouble! You have to-"

Seth clapped his hand across my mouth in response.

"Will you just shut up for half a second?" he asked with a tried smile.

"Mrlfu?"

"You are such an idiot," he said with a martyr's patience. That generated an indignant squeak on my part.

"Whisper, Nadeshiko's fine. I congratulate you on following me all this way, but really, it's time you get out of here."

"But I saw…" said I once he had removed his hand from my lips.

"You saw?"

"Why were her lackeys tying her up if she wasn't in trouble! Unless you're the one that's after her!" I accused.

"Unless I what?" Seth asked, sounding genuinely dumbfounded.

"If you're working with the elf, then you're the one that's after her! You and that gang of black leather goons!"

The wheels were turning in my head even as I said all this. It was a hypothesis that could work, but there was still something way too illogical with the whole thing. Seth seemed to think the same, for he looked at me and laughed.

"I really hope you don't mean that!" he hooted.

This time I was the one doing the scowling. I didn't like to be laughed at like this, and especially not by him. Seth, however, couldn't be stopped.

"Me?" he crowed. "In league with Atrahasis? That's the stupidest…"

"Alright then," I challenged. "If you don't want to get Nadeshiko in trouble, then why are you letting her black leather friends tie her to a chair?"

This stopped Seth's laughter and for a moment, I could have sworn he looked embarrassed.

"Nadeshiko…" he started, then coughed uncomfortably.

So he was embarrassed…I wondered what on this earth could possibly embarrass a man who had ice for blood.

"Let's just say that Nadeshiko has some…interesting…habits and pastimes…"

The gears worked for a minute before I thought I understood. The conclusion I came to was an unsettling one…

"Nadeshiko's into kinky $#?" I asked, disbelieving.

Seth looked like my words had slapped him in the face. He pulled at the fastenings of his cape and muttered,

"Put indelicately, yes, you could say that."

I laughed.

"Well, dear," I said, wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes. "It looks like I'm going to have to disturb her little party. I have a question or two to ask her."

Hindsight again tells me that had I been smart, I would have gone about what I wished to do in a subtler manner. But hearing Seth laugh, and his confession about Nadeshiko's ridiculous fetishes had caused me to let my guard down. I had forgotten whom I was dealing with, and how determined he could be.

Nonetheless, I walked right past him and made for the warehouse across the alley, from which rose a feline yowl.

"Whisper," said Seth, who had suddenly appeared directly in front of me. "You really are thick as a brick, aren't you? I am not letting you near Nadeshiko. You don't seem to have grasped this concept yet."

"Seth," I echoed his flat tone. "You don't seem to have understood that I need to talk to Nadeshiko if I ever want to get Atrahasis off my back."

"Are you all that you care about?" he hissed.

I didn't need to be a genius to see that I hadn't quite said the right thing. Another hindsight attack.

I found out just then, exactly how scary Seth could look when he was really mad. A sudden darkness captured his face and its normally cool expression turned into a molten scowl. His red eyes looked less like blood now and more like glowing coals. He towered…no more like loomed over me and I was so taken aback that I couldn't even squeak.

The next thing I knew, he had me by the front of my shirt against the side of the abandoned warehouse, with my feet dangling a foot from the ground.

Words, insults and arguments crashed like waves over me; I could barely understand all that he was saying. I felt like a terrified child. Each accusation hit me like a slap and for maybe the first time in my life I actually feared for my safety.

I had lived through a cataclysm, for crying out loud!

But two minutes of intensive yelling-at by Seth just had me on my knees.

It took most of my willpower not to cry, and what was left after that not to scream. When he was finally done, the dark cloud lifted from his face, and he stared at me for an agonizing moment. My heart was thumping in my ears, so loud that I was sure he could also hear it.

With one more word: "Go" Seth dumped me on the ground and stalked away toward Nadeshiko's hideout, where the yowls had gotten more high-pitched.

He didn't even make sure I wasn't following him.

Then again, we both knew he didn't have to.

Go, he had said. The don't come back was implicit as well.

I went, like a sullen child; but I went.

I picked up some food on the way home and spent the rest of the evening pondering what I was going to do. My lamentable performance that afternoon had left quite the sting, and now that Seth was nowhere near, my will was reinvigorated. I decided that I would have to go back to see Doc Hiroshito.

He was one of the few solid leads I had on my list of addresses, and I wanted to make at least this one count.

No matter what Seth said or did, I intended to find Nadeshiko and end this madness!

Funny sometimes, how awfully wrong we can be…

That night I had more dreams. They weren't as real as the last few had been, but disturbing just the same.

I saw Marcy weeping and begging for mercy, Atrahasis with a crown of fire, a creepy looking man with a silver streak in his hair, holding a glass of wine…or was it blood? I saw Nadeshiko turn into a beautiful elf with angel wings made out of glass, Doc Hiroshito with a welder in one hand and a mage's staff in the other. I saw a raven take flight and turn into a gorgeous woman with long black hair and eyes…eyes just like mine. And then she was me, and I was flying high over the Ceiling of Scherazade…only the surface wasn't gray, it was green.

Then I was in bed in my apartment again. I thought that I had woken up, but a flash of a vision told me otherwise. I saw a plain gold sphere on a chain, and for some reason, it changed into a gold locket. The jewelry found its way into Seth's hand, but I wasn't really sure it was Seth at all. His eyes were deep blue and his skin glowed with the light of the sun, and the way he smiled…

I groaned. This case was driving me seriously batty, I concluded. I hadn't dreamed of anything else since… since what seemed like forever. I didn't even want to think of the last time that I had had a normal dream. I was just too damn tired.

I punched my pillow, rolled over and went back to sleep.

I woke up to more strange noises on my fire escape, but I was too jaded to bother seeing who or what it was. I decided to stay home for the morning, as much from procrastination as from the need to sit around and think more.

So I spent the next three hours luxuriating in a nice hot bath.

I sat neck-deep in the hot water, after having tweaking the heating spell built into the faucet so that my hot water bill wouldn't register that particular excess.

The cost of living in a place with no sun could put a hamper on my need for commodities…

But once in a while, in times like these, I needed to unwind. And since the surface of the Ceiling would be blistering in the heat at this time of day, I had to go for a replacement stress-reducer.

To really de-stress, though, I would have had to be able to completely empty my head of thoughts. Even in the tub, every time my mind wandered, thoughts of Seth, the case and the Elf would come floating into my imaginary stress-free zone.

Which made it not so stress-free after all.

I must admit that I thought more of Seth than the rest, because he was the one causing me the most trouble. The case was simple: find Nadeshiko. Atrahasis was also pretty easy to figure out: a prick working for governor Mordred, completely full of himself and wanting to find Nadeshiko. But there were some contradictions about him, like the attempting to murder me thing. Only, I thought as I blew bubbles underwater, he did say he didn't mean for the doraani to go out and try to shoot me… In fact, the first thing he did when he came into my office was to apologize. And after that, he only threatened me to try and get me to tell him where Nadeshiko was, even if I didn't have a clue.

It was as if he didn't think I'd tell him when I found out.

I wonder why…

He seemed surprised that I knew his real name. Maybe he underestimated me. And yet, why hire a detective when you think she's a ditz? That was another one of those illogical details about this case.

Of course, if you really wanted illogical, then it'd have to be Seth. He was such an obscene bundle of contradictions that I didn't know what to do with him. On the one hand, he seemed to want to help Nadeshiko to varying degrees; he seemed to know her well and, more importantly, he knew where she was. After the major chewing-out he had given me the last time we met… I shuddered, despite the warmth of the water. After that, I'd call myself Governor Mordred before believing he was out to get her…

"Doesn't anyone else count for you? Are you so important that you'd climb out of trouble on other people's backs! Don't you care that Nadeshiko…that there are other people in this world that need help more that you? Don't you care about anyone besides yourself!"

Damn him.

What did he want? If he was indeed helping Nadeshiko, why would he bother to save me from a doraani shotgun? What was I to him, to Atrahasis? Why was I special?

Seth had called me that. Special.

It had been a taunt, but I still wasn't sure what to make of it. Or what to make of him.

With a sigh, I finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair and let the water drain.

So much for washing away my stress.

I figured that in order to avoid an impending nervous breakdown, I'd have to forget it all for a while, like a century or three.

But since I was on a schedule, I'd have to settle for a few hours.

I was well overdue for a visit to the Surface.

I set out to find the Doc that afternoon.

I spotted Seth on the other side of the platform as I waited for the train to the other side of town. He appeared not to notice me, unless this was some sort of pathetic attempt to follow me… And coming from Seth, the man that could jump off a building and land on his feet without making a sound, I doubted it.

Maybe he wants me to follow him.

To corner me, or kill me when I follow him into some dark alley…

Nah, that wasn't his style. And in any case, I wouldn't be had twice at this game.

I got on the train two cars down from Seth, just to be sure.

After twiddling my thumbs for the two-and-a-half hours my commute took, I hopped off the train and went to find the Doc.

After having gone a block, I thought I heard someone behind me. Vaguely wondering how Seth could be so obvious, I inspected the interior of my purse. My gun was still there and loaded, thank the gods, but that wasn't what I had been looking for.

I remembered having seen another location on my list that had been very close to the Doc's office. Yep, it had been a drugstore.

I checked the address on my list, before making a beeline in the store's direction.

Seth, or whoever it was, followed. I was sure of it. I couldn't hear him, but some strange sixth sense alerted me to his presence.

I entered the store and asked the head pharmacist the usual questions about Nadeshiko. Of course, he had no answer. The jovial man, after telling me I ought to see a doctor for my skin condition (I guess he wasn't used to healthy looking people) got up and went to busy himself with a new client. He was probably the oldest-looking dwarf I had ever seen, and, to my delight, he was complaining loudly of his rheumatism. So loudly that the pharmacist ignored me long enough for me to take a quick glance at his filing cabinet.

Luck seemed to be on my side for once, for I stumbled onto Nadeshiko's record almost immediately. Oddly enough, it was in the wrong folder. It had been classed with some elf chick's file. Shrugging, I grabbed a handful of prescription slips from both the folders, making my exit before the poor pharmacist was done with the grouchy dwarf.

Outside, I stuffed them in my shirt and moved on.

I caught a glimpse of Seth as I rounded a corner.

That was it, I decided.

I didn't even bother to stop by the Doc's. I went instead to the nearest train platform.

I had an idea.

I rode the steam car to South Scherazade. I got off the train at around suppertime.

Good timing, I thought. I'm hungry.

I walked a while and turned a corner, finding myself in front of Rumi's, a classy elven restaurant.

Ginning, I whirled around and faced the shadows.

"So," I called out. "What would you say to dinner?"

Seth, much to my surprise, returned my smile. He stepped out of the gloom and took me by the arm.

"I'd love to."


	8. Interlude

Whisper - The stars in the sky

(Chapter 7)

There was something fundamentally irrational about what I was doing.

I had just invited Seth to dinner.

He had accepted. We were eating fluffy elven hors-d'oeuvres in a posh elven bistro. He was smiling, but we were both silent. It was only after we had started on the main course that I got the guts to speak up.

"We need to talk," I stated, with my inborn flair for all things obvious.

"Oh really?" replied Seth. "You were pretty quiet up till now."

I put on my sourest expression, although the synthetic squid tentacle hanging out of the side of my mouth may have ruined the effect.

"Don't make fun of me. And don't tell me to butt out. It's too late for that."

Seth sighed dramatically.

"Quit it, Wiseguy," I said flatly. "This'll interest you."

Seth's smile told me he was holding back more sarcasm. I scowled for his benefit.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this case is more than meets the eye. I want to know who she is and why Atrahasis is after her. Maybe then I'll see the wisdom in butting out.

" The second course arrived. Seth took a sip of red wine. I was struck by the resemblance between him and the creep from last night's dream.

I remembered how nervous I was.

"Please, Seth, I want to understand."

He leaned back in his chair, took another sip of wine and gazed at me with his blood-coloured eyes.

"Nadeshiko is a young girl hired by my…organisation to pursue a mission entrusted to her successor."

"Organisation?" I queried between two bites of faux lobster soufflé.

"Yes…" he eyeballed me nervously, most likely unsure if he could trust me with any more information than the strict necessary. "I was part of a charity called 'Caretakers of the Blessed'. They protect and shelter Scherazade's lost and less fortunate. They also tried for a very long time to conserve the last specks of Life under the Ceiling."

"I know, I stayed with them for a while…that was when…" I trailed off, partially because I wanted to let him speak, and also because I didn't want to pour my heart out to an almost-total stranger.

"A long time ago, the Caretakers found a seed. It was a simple thing, some extinct species of tree, I believe. But more importantly, it was still alive, during the great famine, when there was no longer any Life at all under the Ceiling. The Seed, we called it, and knew that it would be the key to saving this dying place."

Seth smiled and took a few bites of his roast synth-duck without speaking. I needed this time to digest what he had just said to me. About the Seed and saving Scherazade… Funny, I had never pegged him for a charitable kind of guy, let alone a man out on some doomed holy quest… Then again, he could be feeding me total bull. I chose to let him continue.

"The Seed was entrusted to a young elf girl, in the hopes that she would be able to keep it until the time came to plant it. Unfortunately, as always, there were those who had ulterior motives. An influent politician, for one, had other plans for the Seed. Is…" Seth sighed. "The…the elf who bore the Seed was killed by him, in a plot that had taken many years to concoct, along with most of the Caretakers left in Scherazade. I managed to save the Seed, and with the help of the few Caretakers remaining found Nadeshiko in her stead, and gave her with our treasure."

He smiled wistfully and let the silence lengthen, full of questions unspoken. I had stopped eating, devoting all my attention to Seth's otherworldly tale, and my trying vainly to understand.

After a minute or two, he set his napkin down and stood.

"You'll excuse me," he said, his oh-so-polite expression ever so slightly strained. "I have to use the restrooms."

He left me deep in my thoughts.

Aside from having no recollection of my childhood, adolescence and young adult years, my memory was pretty good. I reached back, deep into repressed memories of feverish nights of panic and despair, trying to find Telperinn.

The scene was not pretty. I don't know how, even now, I can think of myself as sane when those years are part of my past. Screaming and thrashing, I didn't know up from down. All I could think about was the sky, and the summer thunderstorms that were imprinted in my soul. I spent years, decades locked in a room with no windows, tied to a bed, spoon-fed synthetic substances to keep my frantically ill mind in a semblance of a healthy body…to keep the cage that held my mind intact. Telperinn didn't want me to die. He did everything for me during the famine, during my madness. But during that famine…didn't I remember? Hadn't I felt it? That whiff of Life when the Caretakers first found the Seed?

I did. Even out of my mind, I remembered that Seed.

I noticed that my hand was trembling when I held my wine up to my lips.

That meant that Seth's story was for real.

I set down my wineglass for fear of spilling its contents. He was telling the truth. He was telling the truth… "

So," murmured Seth as he noiselessly sat down beside me. "What do you think of Nadeshiko now?"

I looked at Seth, trying to hide the pain memories brought to my eyes.

"I…"

"No need for words, Whisper," Seth said simply, a strange compassion in his voice. "Not yet anyway."

I tried to stop seeing Telperinn flash behind my eyelids every time I blinked. I barely heard Seth start talking again.

"And as for Atrahasis…he…he was the one who killed… the first bearer of the Seed. He wanted…I should say wants…the Seed for his own reasons, or more like a certain governor's reasons. I used to know him well, and that is perhaps the only reason that keeps me from tearing him to shreds after all that he's done…but I have had a long time to grieve the first bearer…"

I looked up from my plate as he said this. There was something in his voice that gave me pause. It was like touching the very smallest atom of the pain he felt… I believed that he had loved this elf…the first bearer… and I wondered if he was lying when he said that he had had the time to grieve…

"…and that may be why you sometimes get the impression Atrahasis and I are on good terms. We almost are, but it's more a matter of professional respect…and the fact that I know…"

…that he has suffered her death more than I

. Our gazes crossed. His lips had not moved when he had finished his sentence. Yet I had heard him clear as if he had spoken straight to me. I shivered, and I think he noticed that I did. After a ten-minute long and very awkward pause, he spoke again. Aloud, this time.

"Whisper, there is something you said earlier that, I admit, made me rather curious.

"I stopped focusing on my near-empty plate and looked up. I couldn't meet his eyes.

"You said that you already knew about the Caretakers… When did you stay with them?"

Now was not the time to tell Seth that I had been in Scherazade since before the first support pylon had been erected, so I fudged the truth a little.

"It wasn't too long ago…I had just grown out of my teenage years… Seems like it's been centuries since!" I laughed a little too nervously.

Smooth, Detective Firimar. Reeeeeaaaaaally smooth.

Seth either didn't pick it up or pretended not to. Instead he smiled almost what you could call warmly.

"Really? Why did you stay with them? Who took care of you?"

I sighed. This was getting personal.

Except… Except I couldn't just get up and leave. My legs refused to, and my head. The normally warring minds in my mind were unanimous. After all that Seth had told me about the Seed, his past with the Caretakers and this elf girl he had loved… I felt that I could trust him with a part of my own past.

"Well, I guess you could say I wasn't made for this lightless world. My first memory was of waking up in a bed in a dark place. An elf was watching over me. His name was Telperinn. It's strange, come to think of it, how healthy he looked…even to the end…"

I heard a soft sigh escape my dinner partner's lips. I wasn't going to go into any further details.

"But I digress. I woke up and couldn't remember who I was. I have no other recollection of my life before that day. I don't know who my parents are, where they are or if they're still alive…but I doubt that last bit very much. When Telperinn found me I was buried under a pile of rubble in the lower levels. Telperinn was a Caretaker and he took me in for the months that I was in a coma, and the months after when I didn't even know my own name."

I was slightly understating the facts here: replace 'months' by 'centuries' and the whole thing'd be accurate.

"But after that I really realised that I wasn't made for Scherazade. I missed a sun I had never seen and rains that I had never felt before… I fell very ill…"

I faltered, wondering whether or not to share the sky with this man. Tell him about the Ceiling and what lay above? I felt like it belonged only to me. But I guessed it was a little too late, now.

Seth, after a long pause, spoke softly.

"And?"

I took a deep breath and looked him square in the eyes.

I saw a coin flipping in my head. Heads or tails…now or never…

"Let's get out of here. I need some fresh air."

How fresh, Seth couldn't possibly know.

About an hour later, we had covered more terrain on the getting-to-know one another front; though Seth utterly refused to go into more detail about his years with the Caretakers. He didn't even tell me why he had left the group. But I knew more about his dreams and his life up to the point when he came to the Central Sector and joined the Caretakers. Beyond that, he wouldn't say.

I said much…probably too much about my own life and my own dreams. I gave no dates, nor anything that would alert him to the fact that I was over fourteen hundred years old. But spilled my guts anyway, and by the time we got to the small hatch in the side of a support wall, the hatch I knew so well, there was a queer aura of trust between the two of us.

I felt that Seth wouldn't hurt me, not even after all that he had done to get between me and finding Nadeshiko. Maybe it was because I knew why he had acted that way. Seth was climbing up the ancient service hatch behind me. I had a hard time imaging that cold a man as someone caring, someone who was putting his life on the line for the sake of a crumbling world.

I said nothing; doubting myself already and letting the sound of our echoing footsteps fill the silence of the tunnel.

I felt the heat radiate from the metal as I steeped up onto the top of the Ceiling. The ground was still very hot, even if the sun was no more than a deep orange glow on the horizon. The top of the sky was velvety blue and the stars had begun to come out in force. I heard Seth step up behind me, then the thumps of his knees hitting the ground.

I casually sat down beside him, watching the last dim fires of the sun play across his astonished face.

No, astonished isn't a strong enough word.

Seth looked awe-struck, shaken right down to the ice in his veins.

He was silent. I could understand why.

I looked around; the surface was always so beautiful. Each sunset was different. Even after a thousand years, I had never gotten tired of seeing it. The metal still seemed to glow, even if the last rays of sunlight had died. I saw the control lights, remnants of when the Ceiling had first been built, glitter green in the twilight. Occasionally one blinked red…a fire, perhaps, or other disaster… more often that not it was just the lights malfunctioning after so many years. Two of the three moons were already high in the heavens, drifting in and out of the grey veil of clouds. It was so quiet up here, with nothing but the whispers of the breeze to fill the vast emptiness.

I heard Seth speak.

"It…" he started, his voice knotted and tight. "It…feels like I'm going to fall into it…the sky… It's so huge…"

"Someone once told me that it was endless," I smiled, not quite remembering whom. "And that this planet is just a ball, falling forever through the emptiness."

Seth looked at me, seemingly a little panicked at the thought.

"I've been coming up here for a long time," I continued, standing up. "Ever since I…fell ill…" I avoided the words 'went temporarily insane'. "This is what's kept me relatively sane all my life. I still miss sunlight, and the rainstorms, but I can never see those. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess. I'm glad I can come up here at all, even if it is only at night. So what do you think?"

Seth looked up, his face full of wonder. It must have been a trick of the sunset, because there were tears brimming in his eyes, and they looked as red as his irises.

"I think," he said slowly. "That this is the most…beautiful sight I've ever seen."

Before I even had time to smile at him, he was up on his feet, wrapping me in a hug. I felt his lips brush the top of my head. I'm glad he couldn't see how red I had turned.

"Seth?" I said tentatively, my voice muffled against his chest. "What's…"

"Thank you," he answered. "Thank you for bringing me here. I believed that the sky was a legend… But you showed me that it was real…"

Feeling a little more than awkward, I raised a hand and patted him on the back, not sure whether I should hug him too or run screaming.

Actually my gut instinct was leaning toward the second option.

What the hell am I doing? Seth…SETH has got his arms around me…

I really didn't understand. I felt as if I had left my brain in the restaurant.

Seth. The red-eyed weirdo is with me on the Ceiling. And he's being really, really nice. What the hell is going on?

Another voice piped up that maybe he was just overwhelmed from seeing the sky. Heck, I cried whenever I came up, and I had been seeing the sunsets for hundreds of years. Maybe being up here could make even the coldest of Scherazade's inhabitants get all mushy…

I didn't really have time to answer my own question, since Seth suddenly stepped back from me, taking my chin between his fingers.

By now the alarm bells in my head were blaring red alert, but it was just a bit too late to run. Seth moved too fast, and part of me didn't want to move at all, and the next thing I knew he was kissing me… and I didn't really mind. I was as surprised at the whole situation as I was at the discovery that I actually had feelings for him…

Ever since we had talked at the bar, they were there. I guess I just never noticed them. Part of me, however, still had its doubts.

Ah, hindsight.

"I'm sorry," Seth whispered as his lips parted from mine and moved down to the side of my neck. I opened my eyes, wondering what he meant.

Ah, hindsight.

I found out a fraction of a second later, as I felt the pain of something sharp piercing my skin. I almost drowned in ecstasy before I realized what was happening.

But by then, it was really too late.

The sky, the Ceiling and Seth's face faded as the sudden loss of blood hit me. Then everything was spinning wildly and going…

"You're a…" I trailed off.

Going…

Vampire.

Gone.

I, ladies and gentlemen, had just been had. Bigtime.

The rest of the night was a haze of light and dark. I have a few scattered recollections of the service tunnel and the back alleys of Scherazade, but nothing more really.

I remembered, however the feeling of something soft underneath me, and blankets being drawn over me… I even thought I remembered a kiss planted on the back of my hand, but it was probably my imagination.

All I really know is that when I woke up the next morning, I had the world's worst hangover, and that wasn't all.

I got up, feeling woozy, stumbling over to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I felt very, very, very cranky. Not only did I feel like a total idiot, I had just been betrayed by the one guy in Scherazade that I thought I could trust. A guy I was dumb enough to actually even consider having feelings for.

On my way to the sink, it dawned on my that I was home.

That meant Seth knew where I lived.

I groaned…more like howled my displeasure at the thought, and smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. Not being exactly in top shape that morning, the effort (and the smack) sent me off-balance and sprawling into my kitchen table. The impact knocked my purse (until then perched rather precariously on the corner) over, sailing to the floor.

Grumbling, groaning and cursing Seth's ancestors, I knelt down to pick the scattered contents up.

My gun, ID cards, lipstick, keys, office keys, phone numbers, takeout bills, a bonbon or two…

Wait a minute.

I rechecked the inside of the purse.

Oh no…

I fell on my butt and let out a stream of expletives to make a sailor's ears bleed, and then I did it again.

"The gods damn that wretched little red-eyed freak," I said, much more calmly than I meant it.

My list was missing.

The bastard had stolen my list. He had paid for dinner, followed my up to the Ceiling, told me all about his life and…and kissed me…just to get the list off me. Just to make sure I wouldn't find Nadeshiko anytime soon.

That bastard.

Feeling even more like an idiot, I started to cry.


	9. Hostage Situation

Whisper - Interlude

Away from Whisper's eyes:

She was called Blackbird in this place and time. It didn't really matter anymore what her name was. She had been around for so long that names had lost most of their significance. So here in Scherazade, in N.E. 1428, it was Blackbird, or Black Bird, or Raven or Rook. She smiled.

You never did stray far from that path, did you Blackbird?

She didn't really see why she ought to. Nicknames involving birds with dark feathers had always suited her, ever since she had been a child. A tear attempted to escape her eye at that thought; thinking back to her childhood was always a humbling experience. She had seen the birth of a world, and it's death... And now she was in Scherazade, being the harbinger of an apocalypse... Doing what I'm best at, she thought wryly.

"Oh well," she muttered. "Gods are gods... and what they decide to do to this ball of rock is their choice. I'm just here to accomplish the destiny they gave me."

Blackbird was sitting on a metal chair on a metal floor in a run-down warehouse. There was one advantage to Scherazade, smirked Blackbird, there was never any shortage of decrepit hideouts. Since the one called 'Whisper' had discovered their other location, they had had to move Nadeshiko and the Seed to Blackbird's personal dwelling. It had been ages since Blackbird had been in a place with so many other people. She found it almost smothering. That was why she spent most of her time in what she called her 'study'. It looked just like all the other rooms, bare and metallic, but here at least she lit candles to take away the harshness of the werelight fixtures. Here were strewn on the metal table all the foretellings, all the prophecy that had ever come out of her lost daughter's mouth.

Lost, she smiled bitterly. Lost, as if she were dead... Aëlis' daughter might still be alive, but Blackbird's is certainly dead.

No... Blackbird is only Blackbird; she has no daughter. She has no life; she is nothing but her mission. Blackbird is a shell in this place.

She sighed.

And in any case, what does it matter that Kael is still alive, if her spirit is dead, and has been for years?

Blackbird leafed through a few sheets of crumbling parchment. They had been copied and copied and copied over the years. Each time it was by her own hand, just to be sure that there were no inaccuracies in her daughter's words. Not that it was terribly important to have them written down. Blackbird still remembered the day her daughter had first gone into that fated trance. And every word she had said, every dream the child had had was etched forever into Blackbird's mind.

Casting a glance down at the sheet, Blackbird nodded, a gesture made simply to reassure. The time was drawing near.

She would meet the woman Seth called 'Whisper'.


	10. A Crack in the Mirror

Whisper - Hostage Situation

(Chapter 8)

Yeah, so my life was a bitch.

I was so pissed off at Seth that morning that I didn't know what to do with myself. You'd think that in a millennium and a half of life (with about a millennium of sanity all in all) a girl would learn. But no, I had to be the trusting, innocent Miss Fairy-Princess who fell for the Knight in shining leather...who turned out to be a fraud.

"Idiot," I told the reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Bending over the sink I splashed my face with cold water, in a futile attempt to wash away the hung-over feeling, the shame and the feelings for Seth that I couldn't deny anymore.

Seth...

I could still feel his arms around me.

"Idiot." I spat through the flow of water, scrubbing harder to keep my thoughts from wandering any further.

His hands brushing my cheek...

Shut up, shut up, shut up, I ordered myself.

His kiss, his lips on my neck...

"Idiot!" I raged, flinging everything on the counter across the room with a sweep of my arms. The soap skidded across the linoleum, the toothbrush clattered to the ground, alongside the toothpaste, and a glass shattered with a satisfying crash.

But what good did it do me? Sure my frustrations were relieved, but breaking things could only make me feel so much better. What good did it do me to call myself stupid? What good did it do me to try and drown the feel of being betrayed?

I'll tell you what it did: nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada.

In short, getting mad didn't get me anywhere. I could still see Seth behind my eyelids every time I blinked, and I still wasn't sure whether I wanted to kiss him or disembowel him.

And I could still feel his arms around me...

"Idiot," I panted to the dripping me in the mirror. Water dribbled down my face and off the tip of my nose, mingled with tears.

How could I have let myself slide like that? I never wanted to fall in love.

"You're such and idiot!" I almost screamed.

In love...

I hated those words.

I had known Seth for five days. Five goddamn, mother-bleeping, #$?# days. Five days and I couldn't get him out of my head...or out of my (idiot!) heart. Not even a week and I was head over heels for this creep, the guy I hated right down to his thrice-cursed undead bones.

But I calmed myself down and decided to do what I did best when I had a problem.

Ignore it.

Taking a deep breath, I relegated Seth to the same corner of my mind where I usually stashed Atrahasis. There the bastard would stay until I forgot him, forgave him (though it was highly unlikely) or shot him.

Drying off my face and stepping over the broken glass (I wasn't in the mood to do housecleaning) I went over to my closet and got dressed, taking care to keep my mind free of all thought, particularly that of Seth.

I then sat down at the kitchen table and called Marcy.

"Hello?" she said, appearing on screen after the fourth ring.

"Bow-oss!" she exclaimed as soon as she recognised me. "What the hell happened t'you? Atr-That elf didn't give you more trouble, did he?"

"No, he didn't, Marcy, everything's fine," I lied. A futile gesture, since I looked like something the rat dragged out of level seventy. My hair was still wet, and stuck out at odd angles from underneath my fedora. My eyes were probably still red from crying (the thought of red eyes made me cringe) and I was still white as a sheet from my 'date' last night. Marcy, though at times only as sharp as your average bowling ball, wasn't so dumb that she didn't notice that I looked like hell.

"You sure you're alright, bow-oss? You don't look too good!"

"I'm fine, Marcy, just fine." The edge to my voice didn't help me at all on that one. I decided to change the subject before she asked me if it was man trouble, because I knew that was coming next.

"So, Marcy, I called you to ask if you'd been keeping in touch with things at the office."

"Oh, yeah bow-oss, the office, yeah!" she said just a little too quickly. I waited for her to continue; wondering what she had done that I would have disapproved of. "I been stayin' away from the office like y'said. So, um...uh... I guess I haven't really been keepin' muh eye on things there..."

"That's okay," I interrupted. "I was planning on taking a look there this morning. You know, to check the messages and look for anything else that might help me on this case."

"Oh," answered Marcy, her voice a little high. "This morning?"

"Yeah," I said, starting to get a little suspicious. "Why not this morning?"

"Oh, no reason!" The nervousness that I thought I had heard in her voice was gone. "What time'll ya be there, bow-oss?"

"Oh, I don't know, probably around eleven. You meet me there? You can grab our monthly budget while we're there. I know you just can't wait to do that!"

Marcy winced and laughed sarcastically.

"Yeah, bow-oss, whatever you say! I'll meetcha there at 'leven."

"Alright, see you there."

I was scarcely in a better mood by the time I got to the office. The train had been crowded, and old fogy kept treading on my feet and there was a little brat of a child that just kept screaming and screaming. That, combined with the fact that I couldn't get my mind off Seth and how great it had been to have him on the Ceiling with me, really did nothing for my mood.

When I stormed up the wrought-iron staircase under the busted werelights, I found Marcy standing outside our door. Well, 'standing' is one way of putting it. Dancing would be a more appropriate term. She looked either like she had an ant colony in her fishnet stockings, or like she was preparing for an air raid. I wasn't in the mood.

Ignoring her completely (for she seemed to be making some sort of squeaking noise) I jammed the key into the lock and flung open the door. Marcy followed me in right on my heels. A pile of bills had accumulated under the mail slot, which I promptly kicked aside. I had one goal in mind: the folder of documents on my desk. Seth might have gotten his mitts on my list, but at least I still had-

Oh damn.

There were noises coming from my office. I distinctly heard the scuffle of feet and the sound of papers flying all over the place. I glanced back at Marcy, who looked a little green and took out my gun.

"Stay here," I ordered.

Turning to my office, I kicked open the door, barking,

"Alright Seth, this crap has gone too far! Now get the-"

Oh damn, again.

The surprised face looking up from my papers was not that of Seth.

I swore.

"Atrahasis, what the hell are you doing here!"

He didn't seem to have an appropriate answer, because all he did was give and inarticulate snarl. I levelled my gun at him.

"Well?" I growled, on a challenging (ok, too challenging) tone.

The elf, as I soon discovered, was up for it. In the blink of an eye, I saw the glint of metal flash from inside his leather jacket.

"You asked for it," I muttered.

A bullet soon wound up in his arm. The gun that he had been drawing clattered to the ground. Atrahasis, his face filled with utter loathing, clapped a hand over the wound.

"This is no way to treat your employer."

"Yeah, well, you don't break into your employee's office! What do you want, Atrahasis?"

"I want to know," he started slowly, speaking through gritted teeth. "Where my bleeping sister is."

I became aware of Marcy hovering over my shoulder. I could almost feel the nervousness radiate from her.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Elf. I. Don't. Know. If I did, believe me, you would be the first to know."

A stretch from the truth, but not a total lie...

"And besides, what the hell are you thinking by breaking into my office and taking a gun out on me?"

Atrahasis looked like he was going to spit. I swear if his lip were to curl anymore, it would roll up over his head. He cracked a smile of pure evil at me and quipped,

"What about you? Shooting your boss is no way to get a raise."

I was about to answer when I noticed two things were amiss. The first was that he was smiling. Sure it was a little strained since I had shot him in the arm, after all. But he was smiling. The second, I realised, was that he wasn't looking at me, but rather through me... or was it not at me at all?

If he wasn't looking at me, then...?

Marcy?

I half-turned to look at my secretary, but instead of seeing my secretary behind me, I saw a large paperweight coming at me a little too fast.

I heard a dull thud as the item connected with the side of my head.

And then all I saw were stars.

Did the whole damn world decide to turn on me? I wondered.

As the room slowly stopped spinning (almost knocked out by a paperweight, what a humiliation...) I heard voices. One was the shrill tone of my secretary (I really was going to have to fire her after this) and the other was the grating, singsong voice of an elf. An elf I really, badly, desperately needed to murder.

Then, as I noticed that I was on the ground, I realised that they were arguing. I was still a little too groggy to understand all that they were saying, and I didn't really want to either. I felt like I had been hit by a train. I rose to my knees.

That's when things got ugly.

Atrahasis barked something, presumably at me, then Marcy screamed and a bunch of stuff fell off her desk with a clatter. I turned my less-than-responsive head towards them.

"Whis-peeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!" Marcy shrieked, sounding positively terrified.

I could understand why. Atrahasis had her by a fistful of hair, and switchblade at the throat. The elf looked merry, Marcy like she was about to cry.

And me? Well I took it all in with a very objective eye. Truth be told, my brain hadn't quite caught up to me, so not much had any impact. I slowly rose to my feet.

"Atrahasis," I said, my mouth feeling like it was full of cotton. "What do you want here? Whatever it is, I'll give it to. Just let Marcy go."

I wasn't sure why I was doing this for the woman who had just cracked me over the head with a paperweight, but whatever... I guess it was out of convenience. Marcy had taken a nosedive in my eyes, but she seemed to be one of the increasing number of people I met that were more in the game than me. I felt so disconnected I wasn't sure if what was happening was really happening.

The elf's insane laugh brought me back a bit, I guess.

"I've already told you what I want, Whisper," he hooted. "Now why don't you give it to me before I prevent this pretty little canary from ever singing again."

Somewhere in my groggy brain, it dawned on me that he ought not know what a canary was, but I was a little too involved in other struggles to make a case out of it.

Marcy however, didn't look as objective as I. She was whimpering, tears making black streaks of kohl down her cheeks. I looked at Atrahasis numbly, listening to my secretary beg for mercy and plead for her life while a madman raked the tip of a knife along her skin.

"Please, please," she sobbed. "Don't hurt me... Oh please don't hurt me..."

And then it was like I had been jerked into a dream. I felt like someone had yanked me into another world by the back of my shirt. I saw Atrahasis, an insane grin plastered on his face. It's hot here, I realised, before the crown of fire that sat on his head engulfed me. Then I saw Marcy again, and she was on her knees, begging for mercy. That vision struck something in me; my groggy senses suddenly woke and I begged my brain to let me go back to reality. As the image of Marcy faded, and I began to soar back up to my body, I thought I heard the flap of wings again, and I saw Seth.

But I didn't have time to dwell. I noticed that Atrahasis had been yelling at me for some time, and was getting impatient.

"Sorry," I said, almost jokingly. "I kind of zonked out there for a minute."

A froth of profanities erupted from the Elf.

"Look Atrahasis. I don't bloody know where Nadeshiko is. Please don't hurt Marcy, she has nothing to do with you and I."

"No, I don't believe you, Firimar. You must know where my sister is! I've seen you with Seth, you can't not know!"

I opened my mouth to speak, but the elf was on a roll.

"And you're wrong," he said firmly, jerking on the handful of blond hair he held in his clenched fist. Marcy squealed accordingly. "This little whore has everything to do with you and I! And your case!"

This gave me pause. My secretary stopping moaning for a moment and looked me in the eye. Guilt was plastered all over her dimpled face.

What the hell is going on here?

Still not understanding what was happening, I had begun to realise how dangerous this situation was getting. Atrahasis seemed reluctant to kill me, but I wasn't sure it would be the same for Marcy, especially since he seemed to have something very personal against her.

"Now, Whisper. Now that I have the upper hand in this little game... Where is my sister?"

I put up my hands in surrender.

"I don't know Atrahasis. Truly."

"Not good enough. I saw you with-"

"Seth? He never told me anything. And let's not go into anymore detail, okay? Just let Marcy go, because I don't know where Nadeshiko is."

"Liar!" he screamed at me, digging the knife deep enough into Marcy's skin to draw a bead of blood.

"Dammit! I don't know where she is! We've been through this already!"

Marcy's screams went up an octave as the knife dug deeper.

"And I've already said that your answer wasn't good enough!" the elf roared.

"Fine, fine!" I shouted back, reaching into my pockets. "You want something, fine!"

I tossed him the crumpled ball of paper that had the address of the warehouse on it. The one time I had caught a glimpse at Nadeshiko.

"I've only seen her once. And it was here. But Seth was there too."

A nasty smile had crept back onto his face.

"That's more like it. I see even you can deliver, Whisper, when you're under pressure."

He slid the knife away from Marcy's throat and turned her to face his creepy, leering mug.

"Thank you so very much, Charming," he told her. "Without you, none of this would be possible right now."

Marcy made a noise, and before any of us could blink, Atrahasis has grabbed her by the shoulders, yanking her into a kiss. He then shoved her to the ground in front of my astonished eyes and bowed out the door. There was a strange mix of guilt, fear and longing on my secretary's face as she watched him leave.

I was torn between running after him (with the purpose of putting another bullet in him), yelling at Marcy until she dished out the whole story and fainting on the spot.

As the adrenaline flowed out of my system, the spot where Marcy had whacked me began to throb. Yet another battle scar, I thought ruefully. How many of these will I have before the week's over?

So what now? I wondered. Go after Atrahasis, or have the conversation that looks to be the beginning of the end of Marcy's friendship with me?

I was saved from that choice by the sound of footsteps on broken glass. A woman had just walked into my office.

I sucked in my breath.

She wore high-heels over fishnet stockings with a black skirt. She wore a red corset under a white linen jacket. On her head she had a large grey felt hat, a feminine version of my fedora. She had ivory skin with slightly pink cheeks...like me. A cascade of jet-black hair fell almost to her knees, knotted with a red silk handkerchief. But it was her eyes that had made me gasp. They were a mix of blue, green and yellow, with oval pupils, not round.

This woman had eyes just like me.

"Whisper Firimar," she asked, in a calm, polished voice, with an accent I couldn't pinpoint.

I stood in dumb silence until she spoke again.

"You are, Whisper Firimar, aren't you?"

"Y-yes, I am."

The woman smiled, as if a large weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

"I called Blackbird in these parts. I would like to help you."

"Help me?"

"You are searching, are you not? I can help you find what you are looking for... Or rather, who you are looking for."

"What?" I almost snapped. Either she was lying and out to get me, or she was yet another in the long list of people that were one step ahead of me in the Nadeshiko-hunt. I didn't know which pissed me off more.

"I know you're on a quest...Whisper. I can help you. Will you let me?"

"What?" I repeated, my brain not having fully digested what she was saying.

Strangely, she wasn't impatient, and didn't look at me like I was some Level 78 kid who had sniffed too much antimag fuel. This woman smiled.

"Would you follow me, Lady? I have much to tell you."

She bent down to say something to Marcy, then took me by the hand and led me out of the building.

Blackbird led me to a train platform, and we waited in silence until an empty express screeched to a halt in front of us.

We sat in the back of the car, facing one another; both silent until the whistle sounded and the train lurched forward. I stole a glance out the window before mentally kicking myself in the butt.

What the hell are you thinking? Seth won't be there... and you know he was just using you!

I must have said that out loud, because Blackbird, with a queer half-smile on her face, said,

"Pardon? Were you speaking to me?"

I shook my head and continued sulking for a moment. The train passed the tip of the platform and my heart jumped into my throat. I thought I saw Seth standing in the shadows of the ticket booth.

I sat back down sullenly when I realised it was just my imagination.

"He's not there," said Blackbird.

"Oh, I know, it was just my ima-"

What the hell?

I stared at Blackbird almost accusingly and she stared back, with that knowing smile still on her lips.

"Forgive me for assuming," she proceeded innocently. "But from the look on your face, you were searching for a loved one, no?"

I just glared at her.

"And I also assumed it was a man," she laughed in a lilting voice. "Pardon me if I've offended you, Lady Firimar."

There was something terribly familiar about this woman, and it was driving me nuts. It was like having a conversation with déjà-vu personified.

I managed a grudging, "Not at all."

Finally, after watching support pylons whirr by the window, I spoke up.

"So what is it that you wanted to tell me about?"

Blackbird's eyes twinkled under the brim of her hat.

"You know."

"Let's pretend I don't."

"As you wish. I have things to tell you about the Seed, about Nadeshiko and the Caretakers... and about this entire city."

I waited for her to continue.

"But I would rather have this conversation in a more private place. If that's alright with you."

I nodded, and resumed my staring out the window.

About a half-hour later, we found ourselves on the train platform, a few stops away from mine.

Blackbird led me to a lift, up a few levels and into an alley...a very familiar alley. My fingers were itching for my pistol, but I forced them to stay still. Even if this Blackbird chick was getting a little creepy, she was a lead I couldn't afford to lose.

She stood before a panel on the support wall, and in a deft move, pried the cover off, revealing the hatch I always used to climb to the top of the Ceiling.

She smiled at me.

"If you'll follow me, I think we'll find a much better place for discussion."

I swallowed nervously. There were a couple of things wrong with this picture. First off, how did she know about this hatch and where it led? And second, even if it was pure coincidence that she knew, how did she expect to survive up there? It was only around noon, and the metal surface of the Ceiling would be boiling...

But I swallowed my doubts and followed her into the tunnel.

We climbed in silence for what seemed like forever until I saw a blinding light glare in the tunnel above my head. It was followed by a flash of bluish-white and I figured Blackbird had just burnt herself to a crisp.

I was wrong.

"Coming, Whisper?" she called down to me.

I reluctantly poked my head out of the protective shadows. It was...pleasantly cool. Pleasantly cool? This didn't smell right.

I looked around to see that Blackbird and I were in a sort of bubble of shimmering air. I stroked my fingers along the surface, feeling the heat outside. I looked up, seeing for the first time I could remember, the sun. It was a perfect day. The sky was a bright, hard blue and there were fluffy clouds sailing across the sky. I almost went blind looking up at the sun.

"So..." began Blackbird, bringing me back down to earth.


	11. Naming Shadows

_**Whisper - Naming Shadows**_

_**(Chapter 10)**_

I felt like a zombie by the time I stumbled off the train. I had gotten off three stops before my usual one, in part because I desperately needed time to think, and also because I wanted to put off my meeting with Marcy as long as I could.

_Strange_, I thought as I walked in a straight line along the cobblestones. _I'm not even angry with her_.

It was now about two p.m. and the streets were pretty crowded. I drifted between the people with the same blank face I had worn since Blackbird left me alone on the Ceiling. I barely noticed the faces in the crowds. _Why should I?_ I wondered. _They're all asleep__ They don't have a clue as to what is really going on in this wretched place._

I chuckled. The faceless drones I walked by right now were a lot like I was a million years ago. Or was it just a week?

_I am different from them._

Such a simple statement I was so acutely aware of.

_But would I have it any other way?_

_Would I choose to be a faceless drone?_

I looked up at one of the finely crafted gothic arches that helped keep Scherazade in place and hated it with all my heart. _Ignorance is bliss. My life is just a pain._

I remembered my mother, telling me that I would do great deeds. Strange how I couldn't recall her face.

_Great things How can I do great things when my heart is being torn in all directions at once?_

Seth. Marcy. Blackbird. The 'other' me. The world

They were ripping me apart.

_Are they all counting on me? Do they all expect me to save this place I failed to save so long ago?_

_That's right, _I thought. _I failed. I failed this place__ that's why they all suffered. That's why I can't tell Marcy about the sky._

Something about the thought of Marcy never having seen the sky clawed at me. I sank to my knees in the sallow shade of a run-down building and fought the tears that threatened to come.

I wasn't angry with Marcy for having betrayed me. Looking back, it was obvious which side she was on. But I didn't care anymore. I wasn't even angry with Seth for that one clear moment. I was just sad. I felt as though I were drowning in my own heart. I had never known that such a huge chunk of me could be missing. Now that I had rediscovered a small piece of that missing me, I felt its absence so much more keenly.

_I have found some small part of me, but all it shows me is that I've really lost everything._

I sighed, and let two tears drip to the cobblestones at my feet. The image of a rainstorm on those same stones flashed before my eyes as I blinked, then was gone. I felt my own fingernails digging into my shoulders. I had been holding myself, as if holding myself in

_What do I do now?_ I thought for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

_Keep walking,_ the voice of reason answered numbly.

I rose from the ground and trudged on towards the office. I supposed the best thing to do at the moment was talk to Marcy, then pick up the pieces after that.

"Still here?" I said in a raw voice, surprising myself.

Marcy, kohl streaking down her cheeks, looked up from the ground and the tatters of my office. She recoiled at the sound of my voice, and something in me withered to see the fear on her face.

_She expected me to be angry_, I thought. _She has the face of one who betrayed, and one who was betrayed. She has the face of one who knows no hope._

I couldn't even force myself to be angry. Not even for the benefit of appearances.

_She has the face of one who has never seen the world Before._

I wondered what I was going to say next. Didn't have to.

"It it's okay," she stuttered, sniffled. "I'll get my things "

She rose to her knees and crawled over to a box. In it were all the gadgets and paperweights and decorations that used to cover the top of her desk A plastic gnome, _for good luck_; a beanbag clown, with white hair, _just like yours, bow-oss_; enough paperweights to hold down the entire Scherazade PD bureaucracy, and even her oversized, bright blue vidophone case, _shaped like a smiling mouth__ _

"Marcy " I muttered.

She had been here, waiting for this moment, for hours.

She had packed all her things and was just waiting for me to give the word and send her on her way

I had never been fair to her, I thought suddenly. Why was she so fair with me?

A strange thought, considering that she had just betrayed me to the Elf.

"Don't, Marcy," I said quickly, before it registered that I had even spoken. "Don't go. It's okay."

Marcy's ash-blonde curls whipped around her face as she turned to face me, in disbelief.

"What?"

I smiled. Another strangeness. Smiling now, for no real reason, despite it all.

"I said not to go."

She stared at me.

"Come on," I said, unable to break the smile. "Let's go somewhere to talk this all out, okay?"

More black make-up trickled down my secretary's face as a new gush of tears came forth. In a split second, she had rocketed off her feet and flung herself around my middle. I ignored the fact that she was getting black streaks all over the front of my clean linen shirt, and patted her on the back.

"Come on."

We found ourselves at my apartment, because it was the safest place I could think of short of the Ceiling. I picked up the broken glass on the floor (I hadn't touched it since my little tantrum that morning) and kicked a path through the clothes and papers that crowded my already crowded two-room apartment. They made my place look like an over-stuffed closet, but considering I was rarely ever home, I didn't really care. Of course, it wasn't exactly a "home" either, more of a temporary lodging I couldn't wait to get away from

On now I wanted to get away from the entire world, not just the roach-infested apartment.

I sat Marcy at the kitchen counter that doubled as a dinner table with a handkerchief, and set about trying to find some edible food, or at least some caffeine. I found a pot of mustard, a jar of instant caffeine crystals and some cookies. Except there was a dead roach beside the cookie box, so I figured it'd be better if I left them alone. I don't like my cookies biting back.

Marcy dried her eyes abundantly as I made the caffeine.

My fridge was empty, so there was no carbo-milk and certainly no saccharine.

So I plunked a steaming, muddy, smelly cup of caffeine in front of Marcy and one in front of me. My head had floated down from the Ceiling by now, making me a little bit more in touch with my feelings particularly my anger.

"Drink," I said, sitting down. "And talk."

"Bow-oss " she started to whine.

"Talk," I cut her off. "I said it was okay. Talk and maybe then I'll be able to completely forgive you."

Marcy looked at me despairingly, but took a deep breath.

"I met Atrahasis before you," she started. I was surprised for a moment; she had dropped most of her accent. "About a year ago."

I almost fell off my chair.

That was right after I had hired her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I managed through clenched teeth.

"Because, I had only seen him once or twice. Y'know on the train, from across the street. It was right after you hired me. I guess that's why."

I swallowed, determined not to throttle her no matter how much I would've liked to.

"He was so very nice t'me. The first few times we met, we only exchanged a few words all polite 'n everything. Even if it wasn't for more than a minute, he still got my heart a-racing every time he looked my way."

There could be made a disturbing parallel here.

"And then, maybe a few months later, we started talking more. I gave him my number and we would go out for dinner or walks on level 12. He never did gimme his. Go figure."

_Seth_, I thought. _Is this what you're about as well? Using me like the Elf used Marcy?_

"And then I saw him in your office back the other week. It was as if he was a different person completely. After that, he started calling me more. We started to see each other more."

I noticed her voice had become a bit more halting.

"And he was so sweet t'me and so kind, and he was so charming. He brought me out to fancy restaurants "

My stomach gave an uncomfortable drop.

"And and then I and then we and and "

Two large tears oozed out of her eyes. A migraine was now pounding on the inside of my skull, as if something in it were trying to get out.

"And then he was asking me questions all kinds of questions about you and the case and he said he was worried about his sister and just wanted to find her and then we we would we had it. "

Marcy broke off with a wail and buried her face in the handkerchief. I massaged my aching temples. This couldn't be good for my blood pressure. I forced my self into breathing slowly and evenly. She had slept with him. Atrahasis. He had done it just to get her wrapped around his little finger, right where he wanted.

That meant

That meant it had been a lie from the start. And if he had lied to Marcy from the start, that meant he knew

Once again, I almost fell off my chair.

_Think it through, Whisper_, I thought, horrified. _Could it be? Is it possible?_

_That the elf has known what I was for that long?_

I raked through my memory. There could be no other answer. But how did he know who I was?

Damn. The news.

A little over a year ago, I had been on the news for having solved a huge bribery shebang in Mordred's lower government. I was on the Vidoscreens for about twenty minutes in total, and I was still wearing my hat.

But it didn't matter, because Mordred had been there in person. I saw his limo hovering in the street, complete with his two dozen bodyguards. If he had seen me, even with the hat he would have recognised me. After all, I recognised him without ever having seen his face in Scherazade. He would have put the elf on my case tried to find me But right after that case, I took my giant paycheque and relocated my office. I also used some of that money to find myself a secretary.

That was how Atrahasis found me, by the add I posted. Then he swooped down on poor Marcy There was one thing that didn't quite add up. Why did he wait so long? Why bother with Marcy and not try directly for me? Maybe it had something to do with Nadeshiko. He did always seem very intent on finding her, and it didn't seem to me that it was because she had the seed. Hadn't he flown off the handle when I had said something unflattering about her?

Maybe Atrahasis was trying to pull some of his own strings behind his boss' back. Knowing him, it would be quite possible.

I slotted these theories in the back of my mind, beneath the pounding migraine and turned back to Marcy, who had sobbed herself out. She was looking dejectedly into her caffeine cup.

I sighed and rubbed at my temples.

"Marcy," I started, not sure I should start this conversation at all. "Do you know what's happening down here?"

She shook her head. I decided to spare her the details.

"Atrahasis I think he was after me since the first time he met you." I winced, awaiting an unpleasant response. There was none. Marcy nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving her caffeine.

"I sort of thought as much. He did seem very interested in the work y'did."

"The Elf works for Mor, uh Governor Mordred. The Elf's so-called sister has something Mordred wants. He decided to use me to try and find it."

"But why a year ago ?"

I sighed again; I felt like my head was going to explode on me.

"I don't know. I think it was because he needed to watch me. To make sure I was right where he wanted me to be when Mordred gave the signal to go. I don't know what happened to make things go the way they went. There are too many things I still haven't figured out "

I took a deep breath to settle my stomach, which was dancing a lively _sid'edhil _in my throat at the moment.

"Marcy I'm not like you."

My heart thumped.

"I know. You're some kind of Elf, aren't you?"

"Yeah, there's that but that isn't the half of it. I I'm not like other elves, either. You know what Governor Mordred is? Why it is he's been alive since before the walls of Scherazade were built?"

Marcy shook her head.

"Because because in the world Before, there were three gods. One was the Father, and he ruled the Elements. The next was the Mother, who ruled Life. And last was the Child, who ruled the Heart."

Marcy didn't seem to have a clue as to where I was going, but it didn't matter. Hell, _I _didn't have a clue as to where I was going.

"These gods were the pillars that supported the world Before. During the course of every cycle about every four hundred years, four children were born with the mark of the gods upon their brow "

I felt myself floating away from my kitchen. I heard myself talk, but at once it wasn't me. I felt a burning in my heart, and a touch on my mind that was and was not of me. Was this the person I used to be?

I sighed and continued.

"Each child was ruled by the element he was born under, and that element was a source of great strength. These children each had a destiny they wished to fulfil. Some were for good, others not. Their destinies kept the children, the Blessed, alive for as long as they desired, or as long as it took them to accomplish what they needed to."

I still felt possessed by this presence in my mind. I didn't know where the knowledge I spoke came from. It was as if I had opened all the sealed corners of my mind, and I no longer knew what to find there.

Marcy still looked vapid. Some things never change, I guess.

"Mordred was one of these children, one of the Blessed except he didn't want to serve the destiny the three gods had bestowed upon him "

Not quite the truth, but how was it important to Marcy to know that there were six gods and not three; and that Mordred served them? Considering that they were most likely dead, not very.

"So Mordred used his gifts against the givers. That's what caused the end of the world Before. Mordred built Scherazade in the darkness, to serve himself. That is what happened."

"But boss how do you know all this?"

I took a deep breath. Admitting this to Marcy was admitting it to myself, and I wasn't too sure that I wanted to.

"Because," I finally said. "I was there."

"You what?"

"I was there. Before Scherazade. While this nightmare world was still a dream in Mordred's twisted little brain."

Marcy choked on a half-formed laugh. She probably hoped I was joking.

"I'm not," I said quietly. "I was there, and I fought Mordred in the ashes of my world."

My heart was beating faster; the fire in my heart burning hotter. It was anger, I realised. She no, _I_ was angry. The clash of two swords rang in my ears, the thunder of magic hurled effortlessly through the scorched air.

"But Mordred he won. And he almost killed me. Thought he did. But I I lived. I just forgot "

Marcy was gaping at me.

"Maybe that was for the best," I mused, speaking now more to myself than her. "If I had known all along everything I'd lost I don't think I would have made it until now."

Images of me thrashing, choking on the canned air, lashing at the ties that held me to that tiny narrow bed. So far, so far from the sun, lost in the stifling darkness with the walls of Scherazade and the Ceiling closing in

"You have no idea, Marcy," I breathed. "How hard it was, how hard it is, to live down here. I was made for the sunshine and the rain, and I hate this city with a passion you can't possibly know. He _stripped it down_, Marcy. He reduced it to ash and built this concrete monster in the place of _Life_. I was supposed to _protect_ it! _I_ was the one who had to protect Life! How could I have let this happen?"

I was dimly aware of my secretary looking rather frightened, but I couldn't stop the words from coming. There was so much anger in this new heart I had found to be mine, so much shame.

"_I_ have been stripped down, Marcy, stripped down to the edge of my soul. I spent years decades I don't know how long strapped to a bed. I couldn't live in this place; Scherazade was driving me out of my mind. And now, now that I'm supposedly sane, I see that it's never stopped driving me crazy. I just stashed the pain and anger away to where I didn't remember. But now I've found my lost memories again."

I swallowed, coming back to my senses. The fire dimmed to embers and I breathed out the breath I'd been holding. Another truth had come to me while I talked.

"And now the pain is back. Which is why which is why I have to do something about it. About Mordred and Scherazade. Soon I'll be going hunting for answers. And that'll get me into a whole lot more trouble. I want you to stay out of it all. I don't want you anymore involved than you already are "

I noticed the Marcy looked particularly terrified.

"What? What's the matter?"

"You your "

I didn't understand how my speech could possibly have put her into such a state.

"Spit it out! What's wrong?"

"You Your head! For a minute over your head Fire! A blue flame shaped like three rings "

I was silent, aware that I didn't fully comprehend the implications of such a sign.

I had thought my gods to be dead, struck down the day the world ended. I had assumed that my long life was just a gift, a residue of the power they once embodied.

Of course, thinking about it with my head screwed on right, that is to say several hours later, at midnight; lying on the floor beside my bed (where Marcy snored), I saw that I had been wrong once more. If Mordred's gods were alive, then mine had to be as well. After all, there are two sides to a coin. If Mordred had wanted to destroy the Trinity (not that I thought he ever did or would) he would have been destroying his own in the same stroke.

You can't destroy only one side of a coin.

So the gods, my gods, still held sway, even in Scherazade.

That meant many things.

Just like the sigil Marcy had seen over my head meant a lot. It meant that the Trinity was not as gone as I had thought. It meant I still had the Blessing, and that it would be in my better interests to remaster that gift, the power Mordred had used against the Mother and her Life. _And_, I thought glumly, fingering the lock of hair that glinted silver in the pitch. _It means I'm losing myself to her, to who I used to _be.

I fell asleep three hours later, seeing Mordred with his glass of blood, Atrahasis with his crown of fire and Seth Seth with red eyes and blue before and after I closed mine in sleep.

_I should have worried_, I thought in hindsight, drifting away from consciousness. _When I started having those dreams even before I fell asleep__ _

But by then, I _was_ asleep, and in any case, that kind of thing didn't matter anymore. Too late, it was. Far too late.

I woke up with gummy eyes and a crick in my neck from having slept on the floor. I sighed. Good morning, Scherazade. Destiny sure knew how to fix it so I woke up cranky. I stared up at the stained ceiling and watched a bug slowly cross my range of vision. Gods bless you, Scherazade. I slid a heavy hand from underneath my threadbare synthwool blanket and slapped my forehead to better wake myself up. I glanced at my watch. Five-thirty in the morning. I had had another great two-hour night of sleep. I supposed that was just my destiny.

I glanced outside the single, tiny window. The morning werelights had yet to start shining. They started gradually, every day at six. Like clockwork, like magic. Silly me, they were regulated by the magic company weren't they?

Stepping around the still-snoring Marcy, I poked my head outside. Same damp cool as usual. There was no noise coming up from the street below, save the occasional hovercab and the ever-present dull roar of the air-circulators. Couldn't be helped. Without those giant, black-hole vents Scherazade would suffocate way down here, thirty-three levels below the Ceiling.

I slid the window shut and tiptoed over to the kitchen.

"I can't live like this anymore," I whispered to the quiet.

I had to do something. I just didn't know what.

I slouched onto the countertop, wishing for a moment that I had a bottle of real alcohol to drown myself in.

"What's gotten into you?" I asked the "other me". "You never wanted a drink like this Before."

_Shut up,_ I heard myself answer. _It's Scherazade that's doing this to you. That and the fact that you don't know who is "you" anymore. Of course you never drank Before. You were happy._

"Now you shut up," I answered to myself.

But I knew that other me was right. I didn't know who she was, or who I was either.

I got up from the counter and tiptoed across the other room, past where Marcy still slept and into the bathroom.

The bald white light drew stark shadows across an already shadowed face in the mirror. It had dark circles under its eyes and the skin around its mouth was tight in a perpetual unhappy expression. The yellow and blue eyes had a brittle look in them, and the figure's white hair was in disarray. The silver streak, the gods' touch, gleamed.

She, I, looked like death warmed over.

I raised a tired hand to my reflection, taking a deep breath.

"Kael," I whispered, a word I hadn't spoken in a thousand years. A word I had voluntarily erased from my memory.

I had named my other self, my shadow.

"Kael."

Her name, my name was Kael.


	12. Tunnel of Light

_**Whisper - Tunnel of light**_

_**(Chapter 11)**_

That morning I walked Marcy back to her apartment and disappeared out of her life for as long as I would be able to manage.

I walked back to my place rather dejectedly, watching the globes of werelight on the top of level 41 brighten in their pre-programmed magical equinox pattern. I was sad. Sadder than I'd been in a long time. When I first met Atrahasis in Mordred's jail, I had told him a lie.

"Sure I've had friends, and lovers too," I had said. It wasn't really a lie, more of a half-truth. There was a time, right after those dizzy years when Telperinn took care of me, that I felt the need to fit in to the Scherazade mould. It was then that I lived, for a while, as a true zombie of Scherazade. I met people, went to clubs, went on dates but only for a while. My friends got old, got married and died, and that was when I realised a fact that has haunted me all my life. I am alone down here, in Scherazade, always was and will be. I only ever had one friend since the walls around me were first built. And in time, even he died on me. Telperinn. I still missed him.

As I walked away from my former secretary's home, I knew, as I had known all those times and all those years before, that this friend I was leaving was not really a friend. Marcy would end up being just like all the others. I would go on living when they did not, and I would forget. I would forget everything about them, right down to their names.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, hoping that it would somehow reach her, and all the other nameless humans I'd left behind. "I wish I could have spared you this, Marcy, but I've walked down this path enough to know it by heart. I hope you'll forget about me too, it'll do you good, and ease my conscience."

I turned, already halfway down Marcy's street.

"Good-bye, Marcy!" I called out in the damp air.

And I walked back home.

I decided to lay low for the next while. I slouched around my overstuffed closet-apartment and tried to figure out who to talk to and what to do next. I made a night raid to my office and salvaged as much information as I could from the elf's ravages. There wasn't much left. Seth - I paused my train of thought to curse him - had stolen my most valuable tool, and Atrahasis had accidentally or otherwise destroyed almost everything else. So I was pretty much screwed.

For the next week I worked as much as I could on the little that I had, while not leaving my apartment and not using the vidophone for fear of being traced by Mordred and his elven thug. Marcy called a few hundred times, but I thought it was best that I stay as far away as I could. So I called her back and told her it was best she stay clear of me and that I was unplugging my phone. Which I did.

But having done that I couldn't order food anymore, so twice a week I went to get my provisions at the supermarket. Which I did.

It so happened that I saw Seth that day.

I didn't see him for the first while, but I knew that he was following me as I left for home.

"Won't you ever give up, you creep?" I muttered through gritted teeth. I started walking faster along the support wall that ran from the store to near my place. When I looked back, I would catch a glimpse of black leather cloak or a pale hand ducking away.

I should have realised that something was different this time, but I was a little too caught up in Kael's anger to see it.

And right then, Kael's temper had a pretty solid hold on me. I was passing in front of an air-circulator and Seth was following me at vampire-speed from atop the buildings. They are the lungs of Scherazade, and I'm constantly amazed and horrified when I see one up close. But this time I didn't think twice about the vent, I was just too peeved at being followed. The dull roar of the air behind me filled my ears and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was mad, too mad to even see straight.

Then something weird happened.

I felt an almost-physical sensation of something passing over me. Then the dull roar turned into a howl and the wind picked up in the three-story-high black hole behind me. It screamed and swirled and knocked me from me feet, icy-cold and laden with moisture. I heard myself shout in fear as the gale rushed over me and then was gone.

So were some of my groceries, but I was a little too freaked out to care.

My hands trembled while I picked myself off the pavement and got to my knees. My heart was pounding, as was my head. I didn't understand what had happened, but I knew that Seth was gone.

"That was too strange," I said to myself, stuffing some of the zappable dinners I had bought back into their bag. I tried to stop the drumroll in my chest and braincase to no avail. So I took a deep breath and stood up. Not a good idea, I soon realised.

When my legs straightened, my vision blurred and I could almost feel my blood pressure drop through the floor. I had felt this before. But why was my head spinning now? It was as if that wind had drained me to the last drop.

I noticed that I had begun mumbling total incoherence and that the ground was coming at me with extraordinary speed.

"Storm's coming," I heard myself say.

I didn't, however, smash my face into the cobblestones, as I had thought I would. The next moment I found myself safe and comfortable in someone's arms. It seems someone had caught me as I fell. I guessed, with a nonchalance that surprised me, that my knight in shining armor was Seth, but my head was too cottony to get angry. When I fully regained my wits, I still felt completely drained, but I was lying propped up against the side of a building, my groceries intact at my side.

"Damn you," I muttered. "That was very strange."

I shakily got to my feet, feeling dizzy and hungry and tired. I looked over my shoulder. At least the wind had gotten rid of Seth.

I made my dizzy way back to my apartment and stuffed the bags of food into the fridge. Then I flopped down on my messy, unmade bed and fell immediately into sleep.

I woke up fresh from more dreams. In my groggy state, I didn't remember them all, but I knew I had seen Nadeshiko, the Doctor dressed as a mage and the sad-looking elf with the crystal wings.

Then it hit me. I still had a lead! When I broke into the pharmacist's files, I pulled out the tigrae girl's information and I still had it kicking around my place somewhere, forgotten by the excitement of the past few days.

Maybe I could trust my dreams after all

I rolled out of bed and checked the time on the pocket-watch I had stuffed in the pocket of my coat.

Eleven-thirty. I was rather pleased at not having overslept too much, considering how crappy I had felt coming home last night.

I turned on the vidoscreen to catch some news and did a double-take.

" and that was the news for today, Aerimas the sixteenth of Birchmon. This is Katolyn Swifte reporting for "

Aerimas? Today was Aerimas? But, yesterday was Daermas! For it to be Aerimas today meant that I had slept straight through Lirimas, an entire day!

"Gods what the hell is wrong with me?"

I felt fine now, but that didn't detract from the fact that I found sleeping for an extra twenty-four hours a little weird.

_My life is beyond weird these days,_ I decided. I shook the sleep out of my head and set to turning my room inside out to find the bits of paper.

After an hour of turning my place upside-down and inside-out, I finally found what I was looking for stuffed in with the plastic forks in a kitchen drawer. Though I didn't know what had possessed me to stick the papers_ there_ of all places, I was still quite glad to find them again. I sat cross-legged on my bed-/living room floor and checked out what I had salvaged from my office. A few addresses I had already checked out, some newspaper cuttings of no importance, a few notes written by me (Atrahasis seemed to have taken most of those) and the pharmacy papers.

"Let's see " I mused, flipping through the medical files.

I had found Nadeshiko's file in with some elf girl's and since I had been in a hurry, I had just grabbed a fistful of documents, not noticing whose information I was pilfering.

The elf's name, as it turned out, was Istara. Odd name, even for an elf, and one that rang a bell.

There hadn't been much in her file, the occasional pain-killer, some medicine for sprains and muscle pain, sleeping pills I raised an eyebrow at the sheet, noticing that my initial assumption had been wrong. She was on a lot of

"Happy pills?" The pharmacist had prescribed anti-dementia and anti-depressives to this young little elf. Who, I noticed by looking at her age, wasn't that young at all.

That was why she needed the happy pills. She was an older elf, and would have been a child at the time Telperinn was dying. That still made her a few centuries old most elves didn't even live as old as she did, which meant she was a pure-blood elf, most likely from a strong bloodline in the world Before. That accounted for the pills. She being that old meant that she had strong ties with Life, like me, just to a lesser extent. Which meant that Scherazade was, as it was me, slowly driving her batty.

I switched to Nadeshiko's file and whistled. This chick had issues!

Her doctor had prescribed about every pill in the book. The tigrae had been treated for everything ranging from head colds to drug addictions to schizophrenia

_Schizophrenia? _

Heart pounding, I noticed who had issued the prescription.

Doctor D. Hiroshito.

Interesting, considering that I didn't see any real medical equipment in his "clinic". I had a funny feeling about this.

I looked at the rest of the catgirl's files. Doc Hiroshito had only issued the one prescription. The last in her file. The others had been issued by three separate quacks, the last being a Doctor Maten. It was an emergency prescription for some chemical I couldn't even pronounce. I scribbled it down on a notepad, intending to hack into Scherazade's magic systems later on to find its use.

I flipped over to Istara's file. Surprise, surprise. All her prescriptions had been issued by Doc Hiroshito. She had also been prescribed the same chemical as Nadeshiko, and also by the little doc.

The last pills Istara took were also ones for schizophrenia.

"I think," I told myself, or Kael, I wasn't sure. "That it's time I go back to consult the Doctor Hiroshito."

But first things first. I had some magic-hacking to do.

I changed into the most nondescript things I could find, those that would make it the easiest for me to skulk around the bowels of Scherazade. I settled on a black bodysuit I kept around for the sole purpose of skulking, my best pair of soft leather boots and a black synth-leather coat that had pockets I could easily stuff notepads and discs and useful tidbits of technology into. I strapped my gun and its holster around my shoulders, somehow refreshed by the feeling of preparing to do something illegal. I slipped the coat on over the suit and gun and rammed a notepad and pen up a sleeve.

_Whisper Firimar, _I thought was no small amount of sarcasm. _Ready to go to any length for the sake of a case…_

I was about to do the very thing that had gotten me into this mess in the first place. Over a month ago, I calculated. Over a month ago I decided to prod around in the magic systems near the gov's mansion, on an anonymous tip I received about old elves and pre-Ceiling children… _Come to think of it, it was probably Atrahasis' doing… getting me there just so he could get me caught by the cops and cut me that 50 thousand blue-chip deal…_ I sighed. _Total scuzzbag…_

But regardless of whether or not it was the elf that set me to it, magic-hacking was something I decided I liked to do. Especially now that my life was so complicated. It happened more and more often that I couldn't tell whether it was me or Kael thinking, and that was starting to scare me. But magic-hacking was like going back to my roots, to the days when I was Whisper, and only Whisper.

I smiled, thinking of how alien it felt on my face.

That thought made me laugh, and I was glad to find that I still could.

Over my coat I slung a shabby blanket that I wore as a cloak, to hide the black bodysuit and coat underneath. I tied parts of another tattered blanket over my feet, to make it look like I was too poor to afford shoes, then I tied as much of my short, scruffy hair up as I could, then jammed my Fedora over my eyebrows. _Good old hat, you don't need any help to look worn-down!_

Now all I needed was a bottle…

I scanned the room, eyes eventually resting on the bottle of _real _scotch I had managed to save from the office.

There was enough left for about four glasses. I opened the bottle, feeling tempted to drink it.

_No, Whisper, _I -Kael-thought. _I'm going to need my wits._

"Ooh," I whined. "I'm sorry, old friend, but I've gotta do this…"

Feeling a pang of guilt for my last bottle of real alcohol, I slowly poured the remaining contents down the sink, and filled the bottle with water.

"Well," I said to my hat, or Kael, I wasn't sure. "I'm ready. Let's go."

No sign of Seth as I slipped out the back door of my apartment and into the dark alley. Still no sign of him as I hunched my shoulders and tottered out onto the cobblestones. It was getting late; the zombies were starting to go back home. I scanned the street for Seth and/or thugs. I saw the occasional down-trodden worker stumble out of a bar, a family on a late-night walk (probably looking for a safe alley to sleep in), a bunch of kids about Nadeshiko's age slumped on the sidewalk spaced out on something

All in all, it didn't look like I was being followed. That was good. I kept up my drunken lout act, slowly teetering down the street, waving my bottle around drunkenly and taken a swig of the water I had poured in. It had the chemical taste of Scherazade water mixed in with the alcohol flavour of the scotch that had been in it. It was awful. But I persevered and soon found myself alone in a dark alley, right beside an abandoned service pipe like the one I went up to the Surface in.

For a second I had an intense pang of longing to go back up there; it had been over a week since I'd seen a sunset. But then I heard a rustle behind me. And then I had more to worry about than the sun.

A man, dressed in rags, much as I was, had teetered into the alley. Slumped as he was on the wall of one of the buildings we were between, he successfully blocked the exit. I had nowhere to run, in short.

I wondered if he was a goon in disguise and he had done it deliberately, or if he was just blind drunk and wanted someplace to vomit in peace.

The man looked up at me and slurred a demand for more booze.

I still couldn't tell if this was just an act or not.

I looked down at the bottle in my hand and held it out for him. He stumbled towards me and took it from me, squinting up into my face.

"Ooh, so yer a elfy-lady " he leered. "I knew no good drunk'd give his booze up to no total stranger "

I was beginning to have my suspicions as to this man's intentions, but I kept up an innocent face as he unscrewed the cap and put the bottle to his lips.

"That's because it isn't booze," I said pleasantly, watching him chug back the disgusting watery-scotch-tasting sludge.

The lout spat a great quantity of it back onto the cobblestones and made a most fascinating gagging sound.

And then I knew he wasn't a drunk, or at least, wasn't as drunk as he seemed. The stuff I had in my scotch bottle was gross enough to upset even my stomach, and I could easily guess its effects on a sensitive belly full of alcohol. The fact that he hadn't splattered anything but the mouthful of scotch-water on the ground meant that he wasn't nearly as drunk as he had first seemed. I was willing to bet that he wasn't drunk at all.

I congratulated myself on my detective work as the not-so-drunk heaved my bottle at my head with professional accuracy. So it was a goon after all. I would definitely have a bone to pick with Atrahasis the next time I saw him. I ducked the bottle and it smashed into the brick wall behind me. Raining glass tinkled down and bit into the back of my neck and right arm. I felt the warmth of blood on my skin as I ducked again, this time dodging a punch.

_Yep,_ I thought, kicking the man in the gut. _I have a _big _bone to pick with that bastard._

The man lunged at me again, but he didn't really have a chance. Though it had been a long time since I had had to beat someone to a pulp, I wasn't all that out of practice. I blocked his right, then his left and hit him square in the jaw with my own fist. I launched into a jump and kicked him in the head as he was stumbling back. _Gods bless elven agility_! I landed the other side of him and watched with satisfaction as he hit the ground. I massaged my left fist, since his jaw was kind of hard, and my fist still kind of tender after I busted it over Seth.

"Dammit," I muttered. "I really am better with a sword "

I think that part was Kael talking.

I stopped gloating and peeked over my shoulder at the street behind me. Undoubtedly, the unconscious goon had buddies waiting for him outside the alley. If I came out, they'd know I'd beaten the crap out of their pal and they'd come after me. I glanced down at the twerp at my feet. He was slow and he had underestimated me, but I didn't think I could handle a legion of goons like him. Finally, my eyes settled on the service pipe. If I went in there like I had planned, they'd all know where I had gone but it would give me some time to escape, because they'd all be waiting for the goon to come out

And they didn't know yet that I had beaten their bud to a fine paste.

I grinned.

Stepping over the unconscious would-be assassin, I pried open the hatch and slipped into the pipe, closing the door carefully behind me.

With the hatch closed, I was in the dark, and in another world altogether. The only sounds troubling the silence were the roar of wind and distance and the drip of condensed moisture that echoed through the pipe. There was a soft hot breeze in the tunnel, from the rise of heat from the infernal lower levels. Everything here was so old, from the metal of the ladder rungs beneath my feet and hands to the very feel of the stale air. I was in one of the first structures of Scherazade. Sweat beneath my hands was making the smooth rungs slippery, so I decided to climb and stop wasting time. But since I was in the pitch dark, the going was a little slow. Something in me twitched and Kael seemed to laugh.

"That's right " I muttered. "I can do that "

My laugh echoed through the tunnel as I focused my concentration (and Kael's ) on a point over my right shoulder. As soon as I felt the swell of energy in the air, I remembered what to do. I focused harder on the point and soon, a flickering blue light came into being. Werelight! I had done it! I actually remembered how to use magic!

I laughed again, Kael laughing with me.

This would make the hacking all the more easy.

With the tiny blue light hovering over my shoulder, I was at my destination in no time. It was a point about half a foot into the wall of my tunnel, on level 22. I could never have explained what the hell it was, but I knew that this was where I had to come when I desperately needed an answer, and had no other way of finding it. I turned to the tunnel wall behind me, the globe of werelight swivelling with my movements, and loosened a lever. I was relieved to see how easily I got it done. The last time that I had been here, which was to say right before I landed myself in this incredible mess, I had yanked at the lever for fifteen minutes before it came loose. Its reluctance to move no doubt had to do with years of inactivity in the moist, warm service tunnel. But the lever didn't cause me too much grief this time, and once I had dislodged it from its protective niche in the damp, rusted wall, I could easily pull it down and activate the mechanism. Ancient gears ground together audibly from inside the wall, and into the stale air of the pipe hissed a plume of steam, as a long-unused part of Scherazade's machine was put back to work. It wasn't a very impressive display all in all, but from a machine fourteen hundred years old, it was rather to be expected. With the hiss of steam, a bench swung out from the wall. Its cushion was frittering away and it smelled very musty, and quite strongly of mould, which, although understandable, still made the thick warm, stale air of the tunnel all the less easy to breathe. It creaked and protested when I sat on it, but even for all its rust-eaten metal, it still supported my weight well enough. Then out of the wall facing me came another hiss of steam and more of the clank and clatter of an old mechanism. This time it was a large, flat panel that came loose, and with the creak of joints for which rust had replaced oil, the panel lifted over a sort of strange console that was sliding out of its own hidden niche in the wall. The console didn't look as if it belonged with the rest of these Scherazade contraptions. It was made of metal, but was not ornamented with gears and buttons and levers. The only things on the console's surface were a large dull crystal, whose colour hovered somewhere between blue and black, and a sort of interface in a metal that looked like bronze, but showed no signs of age. Upon this metal plaque there were engraved what looked like hundreds of complex channels, most of which were decorated by strange symbols I could almost remember.

I took a deep breath. This is where it got a little dangerous. Poking my way into the flow of magic this way was what got me into jail a month and a half ago. Not only was it rather risky, but now, on top of that, I had the goons from down below that might be following me up the tunnel that very second.

_Well, in that case, _I decided. _I had better do this fast._

I slapped my hand down on the round crystal in front of me. The dull midnight colour flashed to a brilliant blue not unlike that of the werelight on my shoulder. I watched as the channels and symbols were all lit with a similar glow, as if the blue light was liquid. I had only felt what happened next a handful of times in my life, but I knew enough to brace myself.

The pull was incredible, like falling, like being sucked under water or flattened against a rock. It made me dizzy, especially in that instant in which I realised that my mind and body were no longer in the same place. After that, it got a little easier as I figured out anew how to control my mind's flight through the magic. I could never quite describe what it was like. A bit akin to flying through a tunnel of light, where all your memories and knowledge, and that of all the other inhabitants of Scherazade plastered and lit the walls. I felt something in me tug sharply, and I realised it was me, or rather Kael, pulling me towards some long-lost memories.

"Not now," I said sharply, though my physical voice in that tunnel of disembodied spirit was only a buzz of information, quickly sucked onto the ever-changing walls of light.

There was something besides memories I was looking for here.

I spun through the colours and the sounds of the magic, aware that I didn't have much time from that point on. Mordred would know I was here, doing this, he would always know. I just had to be faster and more careful than last time.

As it turned out, Kael helped me enormously. I was still the one driving, but she was more than simply guiding me she _became_ me to sift through the hum of answers. The "me" function was put on auto-pilot as I felt the other one that lived in my mind snatch out for answers I wouldn't have known to recognise. As I blasted through the collective consciousness of Scherazade, I found my answers, and a few more to boot.

But then I found _him_.

Something told me he was always here, always touching this flow. Always watching me.

Mordred.

Kael reacted instantly to the recognition. I felt her feelings overpower mine; her anger aflame inside me. We, I suddenly changed direction in the flow of magic and information. Kael was drawn, with incredible fury, to Mordred's ghostly presence. Like a moth to a flame. I knew our encounter would have much the same consequences. If I, if we, faced Mordred in my shattered, scattered state, he would destroy me.

I would be left a twitching, drooling body sitting in a tunnel, devoid of mind, waiting to die and rot away.

Kael was closing the distance between his spirit and mine.

I sensed Mordred's amusement.

_Stop._ I willed at Kael, my other self.

_Stop it. Stop now._

I was getting closer.

_Stop! Kael, Whisper! Stop, whoever I am!_

Too close. Mordred was smiling, wherever his body was. He was close enough to start stripping away at the layers of me.

I saw the images flash before me as he tore at my memories in the tunnel of light. He was also looking for something, in me. I felt Kael drawing at my energy. She wasn't conscious, or at least, even less so than usual. She was a bundle of feeling now. A ball of anger sapping at my strength.

And she too had a purpose here.

I flung up my arms in a silly, too-human gesture to protect myself from Mordred. To no avail, as I would have guessed. He laughed in the flow and the static, raping my mind in search of his answers. My spirit writhed and twisted to avoid his ethereal claws, but it was useless. Memories flitted by from me to him. The past few weeks of doing nothing and feeling low, Marcy and Atrahasis, Seth on the Ceiling, feeling helpless as dirt. I screamed to stop, but couldn't flee, for Kael had a tight hold on me and was pulling me closer. I lashed out with my infant power, in despair. Mordred laughed. Nothing happened; Kael was taking up too much of my energy. Mordred laughed again as he ripped at me even more. I felt helpless, suffocating in the buzz, furious at him, furious at Atrahasis and Seth, and furious at Kael, for she would be the death of me.

Ironically, she was the one that saved me.

With all the strength she had stolen from me, she lashed out at Mordred's spirit in the tunnel of light.


	13. Calling the Water, Calling the Wind

_**Whisper - Calling the water, Calling the wind**_

_**(Chapter 12)**_

I opened my eyes to damp darkness. There was cold water dripping down my forehead. Where the hell was I? I brought a hand to my brow. It was shaking, I noticed in a sort of detached manner.

So what the hell was I doing here anyway? And where, for that matter was here?

My shaking hand finally reached my head. It hurt. My head, not my hand. The droplets now trickling down my nose I guessed to be a mix of sweat and the damp air around me. Damn, my head hurt. The question of where I was resurfaced in my spirit again, with more insistence. It was as if something inside was trying to make me remember… but remember what?

I sighed, and heard and my voice echo, dry and thin as tearing paper, through the surrounding darkness.

Darkness… Why was it so dark, and why was I tired, cold and shaking?

I sighed again, weary of trying to think. It was an unusual effort, thinking. I felt like I had been scattered into the air around me, and that thinking was like trying to pick up all the little glass-shards of thought… I didn't make much sense, I decided. I leaned forward, noticing for the first time that I was stuck in a sitting position. As if only now learning to see, I noticed a panel in front of me. In the centre was a crystal, and a thousand minuscule channels and runes, that all glowed with a pulsing light.

My hands went to my head as I doubled over in a spasm of pain. For a moment, my head was so filled with strange static that I thought I would explode. I ground my teeth almost to the point of cracking my jaw. What the hell was going on? The static receded, and I was left in the dark again, panting. The unbearable light that had filled my head was gone. I was left more bewildered than ever.

I slumped back to where I had been sitting, and let my mind drift; I didn't seem to have the strength to do anything else. I tried to remember what I had been doing, to no avail. I tried to remember where I was, to no avail. I tried to remember who I was, and still nothing. I could only remember one word. It seemed to be my name, but in a way, I wanted to think that it had nothing to do with me.

Kael.

What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I think straight?

There was something important about Kael, the name and its meaning. There was something dangerous.

'…Kael, stop! Kael…'

Did I just hear something?

'…Be quiet, Whisper! Stop whining!'

What?

'…Kael, please stop! That's Mordred! Stop!'

'I'll kill the bastard!'

'KAEL! Please stop! He's killing me! KAEL!'

'Stop whining! I'LL KILL HIM!'

I screamed as the voice in my head screamed. I lost sight of the crystal in front of me, and I thought I passed out. I seemed to be falling, deeper and deeper, further and further.

And then it all stopped.

Everything was still pitch black, but I could see myself. I seemed to be on my knees in the darkness, even though there wasn't any floor. Before me must have been a mirror, for I saw a vision of myself reflected. But it was no mirror I had ever seen. I knew it was me, I recognised myself, but the me in the mirror was different. She looked stronger than I was. There was fiery pride in her eyes, when in my I knew there to be only a ghost of fire, stifled by exhaustion and despair. The Whisper in the mirror…hey, so my name was Whisper…had long hair, when mine was shorter and spikier. Her skin, though pale as mine, didn't have the sickly cast of one who hadn't seen the sun in a thousand years…so, I had been in the dark for a thousand years… and the silver streak in her hair gleamed in the mirror-light. I was looking at a mirror, then, of the person I had been?

"Wrong," said the woman in the mirror, standing up. "I am not Whisper, and I never was. I am Kael. And like it or not, so are you."

"What?" I asked, thoroughly confused.

"You like to call yourself Whisper, instead of Kael, because you are weak. You hide in your fake name and in your fake life, and pretend you do not remember as much as you do.

"There are so many things that I know," continued Kael in the mirror. "And that you refuse to acknowledge. Why? Why pretend you are stupider than you are? Are you trying to fit in with the drudges of Scherazade? If so, you are doing an impeccable job. If this continues, you will have done Mordred's job yourself, and then nothing and no one will be left to save the seed of Life."

Mordred. The Seed. Scherazade. These words rang dully in my aching head. I couldn't dream anymore, pretend this wasn't happening. I was waking up. Kael seemed to notice as well, for the mirror that framed her image melted into the air, and she stepped forward.

"Look, Kael, or Whisper if you prefer. You are falling."

Sure enough, as I looked down, I saw a black chasm expand under my feet. I knew I was falling, but somehow, it was far away, as if it wasn't really happening. Kael crossed the space between us and took me in her arms. It was like having a missing piece of me return.

"I am one with you," she whispered to my ear as we fell. "Just remember what I told you, and remember what, in your heart, you've always known."

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, Kael was no longer there. And I was falling; I realised with a shock. I was still in the tunnel! And I was falling!

With much effort, I wrenched panic's clammy fingers from around my gut and did what Kael had told me to do: remember.

It was like a breath of air for a drowning man. I was whole again. And I knew just what to do.

There was no hesitation this time. I called out, the way I had always known how to do. I called out to the water that had given me life and asked for help. For a second, I wasn't sure I had succeeded, but then, I heard it as I fell.

The air trembled around me, and I heard the rush of air, and the deep, groaning rumble of something else. It was as if the insides of Scherazade were groaning.

I looked down and, with a fierce joy I hadn't ever felt in the city, I saw it.

A frothing, churning mass of water had spouted below me, and was rushing up the tunnel to meet me. I laughed, and it engulfed me.

It felt good; it felt warm and comforting. I knew I would be safe. I didn't even have to breathe anymore. I was part of the water; it was in me and I was in it. Water was my child, my mother, my life, my blood. It was what brought the silver mark on my head to life. And water was the key to all of this.

It was pretty silly, come to think about it. Water was the reason that I was messed up in Mordred's affairs. I was the only one who could possibly sprout the Seed and bring Life back to Scherazade. The silver the gods had given him was the silver of fire, and death. My silver was water, and Life.

As I rushed to the surface, the same static that had had me screaming before my fall and encounter with Kael buzzed back into my brain, but this time, I understood what it was.

"Those horrid caretakers have made off with the Seed. What am I to do now? I should have tried to kill it had I had the chance! Hmmm...alas, I believe that whatever had happened, that traitor would have made sure that I had not had the chance. How blind I have been. If those blasted Caretakers find someone who can make it grow... No, that is impossible. With my Net in place, no new Blessed can escape my eye... and only a very old, very powerful Blessed could get by. Only Kael could, in fact...and I do believe that whore is dead."

"Gods be damned! This will never work... Seth...Istara...I've been betrayed. They took you away! They took you away, my precious...they took you away..."

" 'I'm not sure this is going to work. She seems...um...less than responsive to us...or to anything for that matter!'

'There is nothing we can do. She does not remember anything, and has no idea who she is. It would be simple to tell her, but I am afraid it would damage her. Her mind is shattered. She may never pick all the pieces up herself, and I do not wish to break her psyche anymore than Mordred has already done.' "

These were the whispers of Scherazade. The memories, the thoughts of all, trapped and locked into Mordred's net of magic, and brought back to me by the Kael that I was not quite. It was making sense, for the first time in a long time. I was no longer helpless, caught between Mordred, Seth and Atrahasis.

Rushing up in bubbles towards the Ceiling and the sky, I had a chance now. I would remain Whisper, and become Kael as well.

As I had half-expected, crawling back down the shafts and tunnels to my home, I could still hear the occasional snippet of Scherezade's memory. Be it just the twitter of birds that no longer existed or Telperinn's mutterings at my bedside, oh-so-long-ago. I was still connected, by Kael's thread, to the flow of energy that ran through the city. I wondered what had happened to Mordred, what I, what Kael had done to him. It was a slow trip back home. I wasn't quite sure what I was to do now… I had gotten information, but was it what I wanted? Gods, I couldn't even remember what it was that I had gone into the tunnels to look for…

Oh, yeah. Nadeshiko and the elf-chick, Istara… Doc Hiroshito had both prescribed the same thing to both of them, and there seemed to be some link between them.

Wait a minute!

It struck me. Gods, I'm so smart!

I reached back into my memory for a snatch of conversation, and found that I didn't have to look so far at all. I could hear the hum of Scherezade's recollections at all times, I just had to find what I was looking for in the tunnel of light!

I closed my eyes and felt myself floating back. I was more careful this time, not wanting to cross Mordred again. I tuned in on the voice I wanted to hear, and the moment.

A posh elven restaurant, several weeks ago. Seth.

"The…the elf who bore the Seed was killed by him, in a plot that had taken many years to concoct, along with most of the Caretakers left in Scherazade. I managed to save the Seed, and with the help of the few Caretakers remaining found Nadeshiko in her stead, and gave her with our treasure."

There it was. I opened my eyes and resumed my climb down the tunnel at a much faster pace, excited at the possibility.

Could Istara have been the first Bearer of the Seed? It was more than possible… Istara had been a pure elf, from an undoubtedly powerful bloodline, and she would have been quite young when Telperinn died…

But that left so many loose ends…

Seth had said that the first Seed-Bearer had been killed around the same time as most of the Caretakers, and that was right after I had regained my sanity…which made the whole story a few centuries old! Nadeshiko couldn't have been the second Bearer after Istara, because that would make her old enough to be her own great-great-great-great… I didn't even know how many "greats" grandmother!

Sighing, I slipped out of the tunnel behind the lift on level 19 and strolled over to the train platform. I had begun to hate train platforms, and now I always looked over my shoulder for red-eyed freaks.

I still wasn't sure whose side Seth was on, and it had been ages since I'd last seen him, but I was willing to wager that he wasn't on mine. He had tried to stop me before, and had succeeded in slowing me down after having taken my list… Marcy had been kind enough to destroy the original documents I'd made the list from. It seemed that Atrahasis had also wanted to slow me down for a while… Then I'd only seen Seth once or twice since the embarrassing episode on the Ceiling (I still reddened at the thought of it, curse me!) and he'd never been there for long…

He had something to do with the Caretakers and with Istara and Nadeshiko, for certain. He even had a link with Doc Hiroshito… But what did he want?

I figured I'd have to find him to find out, and to find a lot of the answers I was looking for.

Why did I get the impression that so much had to do with me? What was I to all this sorry mess? A chosen of the trinity, that I knew, but I also knew that the trinity was close to dead, and had very little power in Mordred's city of death. But Atrahasis needed me, to find Nadeshiko, his "sister". Mordred needed me, sort of. Seth needed me… in my place, safely out of the way, of course!

And Aëlis, Blackbird needed me. She was strange, like me in many ways. I knew there was something between us beyond the silver streak of hair, but I dared not put it into words. After fourteen hundred years alone, the thought of living family was a little much to cope with. She tried to convince me that Seth was on my side, and that she was as well, but I didn't buy it yet. Ever was I the faithless one. Prove it, and then I'll believe it. Not before.

The train lumbered into the station in a cloud of steam and smoke. I coughed, choking on the coal in the air. I was the only one it bothered. The rest of the zombies went on as if nothing was wrong.

I sat and stared absently out the glass. Grey smoke swirled around the grey train, the grey stones and the grey people. There was colour in my dreams. But I had to go through the grey maze of Scherezade to make them come true.

I needed sleep; I was starting to get philosophical.

When I reached my apartment, everything seemed perfectly normal. The lights were out, and the stairwell light hadn't been repaired, even if it'd been a week since I'd called the magic company to come charge it up. But there was something niggling at the back of my mind. Something I ought to have been aware of. When I opened the door and caught a bullet in the shoulder, I realised what it was. Atrahasis had come to kill me.

Wasting no time and ignoring the pain, I slammed the door and stumbled-ran down the wrought-iron stairs, clapping a hand over the burning pain in my right shoulder. I heard bullets stick into the walls near behind me, and then the door to my home crash open.

This was not good.

Heart pounding, blood dripping, I dashed out of the building and into the street. Not good, not good. Three cars hovered to a stop across the street, and begun to unload their gun-toting passengers.

I skidded to a stop and charged into the alley. This also turned out to be a bad idea.

Two of the elf's goons were waiting there. Gods damn him; they were thorough little bastards weren't they? At least these two didn't have guns, only a club and a knife.

Oh well, said Kael's laid-back voice in my head. We're already running straight for them, why stop? They'll be a piece of cake!

For once I was inclined to listen to her. Besides, it wasn't like I'd never busted a few heads in my day in Scherezade!

I took my hand off the bullet wound in my shoulder, knowing that I wouldn't be able to do much with my right arm anyway and launched myself into a jump. Blessing my elven heritage, I landed right on top of Bat-boy, putting him out of it for a little while. Next I took care of Knife-boy, or at least, started to. Duck, punch, duck, duck, kick. This was pretty basic stuff. I easily wove my way away from his knife-slashes, being careful not to trip over Bat-boy. I even had time to land a few hits of my own, but I was unfortunately interrupted.

I had to hand it to Bat-boy. He sure had good timing. When his head finally cleared, he wanted to bash mine in like the good goon he was paid to be. So naturally, he got off his arse to do so. Fortunately for him and unfortunately for me, that was when Atrahasis and goons caught up with me in the alley. Bat-boy was in the wrong place at the right time, for me. He was the one who caught the slug in the head, not me!

That was my signal to run.

I still had Knife-boy on my tail, along with the gun-toting goons further back, but I managed to cross a large portion of my Scherezade neighbourhood without getting killed. The only problem was that I didn't have a clue where I was headed. I couldn't go for the station, because there was bound to be a nasty welcoming party and I couldn't head for a tunnel, because it took me too long to fumble with the locks to get it open. And even if I did, I would be a fish in a barrel for the Elf.

The answer came as I ran, dodging bullets down a street at the very edge of my sector. I was running along the Support Wall when I saw it: the gaping maw that stretched up the side of the Wall. The horrendous iron lung that kept Scherezade from suffocating. The circulator. That was my ticket out of here! The vent itself was huge, but at least twenty feet off the ground, to keep suicidal elves from flinging themselves in and clogging up the ventilation. It was a longshot, but if I still remembered how to call the air I might be able to do it…

With an estimated three seconds left before the goons with guns would catch up with me, I called out to Kael hiding in my head. I would need help for this, and if it didn't work, I'd end up dead…at best. The worst that could happen, the sarcastic voice thought chipperly, was that I'd screw up and zoom right into Mordred's hands. That would be cute.

Oh well, no time left to argue if I want to have a shot at surviving this…

I took a deep breath, focused on the flow in Scherezade's poor air, and jumped. As high, as far, and as fast as I could.

I didn't dare open my eyes. I was afraid that I'd find myself still on the ground with Atrahasis and his lackeys. I felt as if I were flying, so I worked up the guts enough to crack open an eye.

The Elf and his goons had stopped dead in their tracks, as time itself seemed to have done. They were far and small, way down there on the ground. I'd done it! I exulted, light as a feather, feeling as if the world had stopped to allow me to cherish this moment. Slowly, slowly, I rose in the air, not flying, but leaping. It had worked! The air carried me up higher. I saw, with a carefree feeling, Atrahasis, his facing twisting in ugly ways, raise his gun. He was a snail and I was a bird… I smiled, wanted to laugh. He would never touch me!

The air bore me still higher; I was halfway to the roof of the level now. Atrahasis screamed something at me, but I didn't care. His gun wasn't even half-raised; he was so slow.

The vent's suction then picked me up and drew me in. All light vanished as I was drawn like a leaf in the storm, down into Scherezade's black heart.

I laughed.


	14. Tangled

_**Whisper - Tangled**_

_**(Chapter 13)**_

The ride on the giant city's artificial wind was interesting, to say the least. I was torn between the terror of my rediscovered abilities and the glee of finding another part of myself that I had though lost. Kael and I were getting along rather well, which I still found a tad unnerving, for I was no longer sure which "me" was the real me. So basically I sat back and tried to calm myself down with the soft hum of the echo of the tunnel of light, Scherazade's memory and magic, as it resonated with my calling of the wind. Since I had no idea where my calling was taking me, I surmised that I had a little time to think, so I decided to muse over some of the stranger goings-on of the past few weeks. I guessed that since I had managed to call the water once in the service tunnel, and now I'd called the wind, I was probably able to call on fire and earth. Though in my dim memory as Kael, I had always had trouble with those two elements. I wondered, as I soared in the pitch darkness, what I had to do with everything. It was getting clearer and clearer as time went by. I was most likely the last Chosen alive, other than Blackbird and Mordred. And as such, I was most likely the biggest, sharpest thorn in his side. Not to mention that I seemed to be an obstacle in the achievement of whatever diabolical plan the undead creep was cooking up. As for Blackbird and the "resistance", the jury was still out. Blackbird seemed to want to help me, but I'd been had by the good ole' dagger-in-the-back trick too many times before, and I just wasn't ready to trust a woman who seemed to know everything about me, not to mention a woman who sided with Seth. I _still_ didn't know what the hell he wanted with me. It had to do with the Seed for sure, and perhaps his long-lost Istara. I didn't really want to think about them for the moment. Besides, I was busy screaming down the inside of Scherazade's ventilation system. I had bigger fish to fry.

When minutes started feeling like hours, I began wondering if and when the wind would let me off it's ride. Kael stirred inside me, but now rather than her being a different voice, a different person, she felt more like a bubble of emotions and thoughts inside my own. She was getting a little impatient, although she had no specific direction or destination in mind. Maybe that was it, I realized. The wind would take me where I wanted to go, but to do that, I needed a place to go in the first place.

I lounged about for a while, indulging in the magic in the air around me, all the while wondering where the best place for me was, in a city filled with ghouls, vampires and hired goons, all waiting to bag my head and bring it back to Mordred. I figured that the best thing for me would be to solve the mysteries I had left on my hands pronto, that way I'd at least have a bit of advantage when my "enemies" decided to flex more of their muscle. Namely, I needed to know more about Seth and what he wanted, more about Mordred and what he wanted, more about Atrahasis and what he wanted, and what in the Nine Hells Istara and Nadeshiko had to with it all and with each other.

Not bad for a wish list, I thought sarcastically.

There was one place, though, where I just possibly might get a few answers to my questions. One of the few places, in fact, to have yielded a few tidbits in the past. Doc Hiroshito's clinic.

The calm wind that had me floating comfortably along in the darkness of the air circulators shifted with an agonized roar. I felt the echo of my last thought splash like a golden droplet into the web of the tunnel of light. The wind picked up. Kael was nervous. And with good reason, too, for the tunnel of light was one of Mordred's tricks and traps. It was the place where all of Scherazade's thoughts and recollections lay. It was the perfect surveillance system, and if I'd heard my thoughts echo there, I knew that Mordred had as well. I focused more and more of my concentration on the circulator near the clinic, not really caring about the wind's speed, or the noise my thoughts must have been making in the tunnel. The air was churning and screaming; I was being balloted around like a leaf in a hurricane. But it didn't matter. I felt Doc Hiroshito's thoughts in the tunnel. They were frightened. My stomach dropped as if it had suddenly turned into lead. Then I felt something else in the tunnel. A darkness, spreading like spilt blood over the web of thoughts, reaching out to me. I swore. It was Mordred.

Kael and I agreed for once, as we both desperately tried to ignore Mordred and his efforts to find me, and put every iota of our mind to getting to the Doc as fast as we could. If Mordred were to find my thoughts in the tunnel, I shuddered at the consequences. If my brain managed to survive that encounter and still be in a big enough piece to control the wind, it would be child's play to locate my physical self as it zoomed around the air vents. And that, of course, if Mordred didn't slaughter my psyche in the tunnel of light, or cripple me badly enough so that I would no longer be able to keep my hold on the wind. Whereupon I would drop like a stone and come to a splattering end.

_Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up_! I scolded myself. I forced myself to call more and more of the wind, to fly faster and faster through the darkness. I didn't need eyes to see where I was going, instinct and the trinity's gift were a good enough lead for me. Up, up, left, right, up. Mordred was on my heels, his foul stain spreading all through the tunnel. I wasn't even aware of my body anymore, and bit by bit, I managed to blot Mordred's presence out of my mind. And then for a moment it was as if I had disappeared. I wasn't even flying anymore. It was quite the strange sensation. I knew I still _was_, but I didn't know where. I was very calm, and it was very silent, even if I could still hear Mordred screaming his frustration in the tunnel of light.

_He must have lost my trail_, I thought, bemused.

And then reality seemed to kick back in quite suddenly, as I became aware of my imminent collision with the circulator's wall. I landed…if it could even be called that…when the winds flew me straight into a water pipe. The pipe caught me straight in the stomach, from where I dangled, thoroughly winded, about twenty feet in the air.

"Ooff…" was the only sound that managed its way out of my windpipe. By the time I got my breath back, however, I realized how lucky I was to have crash-landed where I did. Looking around, I recognized the air vent just outside Doc Hiroshito's clinic. And Mordred's presence was nowhere to be felt.

Feeling like the luckiest gal in Scherazade, I untangled myself from about my water pipe, flopped onto the circulator floor, and made a beeline for the Doc's.

The lucky feeling, of course, was not going to last long, as I was about to find out.

As I tore across the cobblestones towards the clinic, it was obvious that something was wrong. The thick metal door was bent and off its hinges, lying on the walk in front of the place. And then, there was me; the bullet wound, even if it wasn't very serious, was getting to bleed a little more than I would have cared for it to. I glanced down at my arm to find red stains on the dingy blanket I still wore as a cloak. Not slowing down in my run, I yanked the cover off to get a closer look, and cursed silently at the blood I was losing. Coupled with the pain from the actual wound, which adrenaline from my ride in the wind had caused me to forget about; the blood I was losing was making me start to feel really crappy. But, dammit, I didn't have time to waste on feeling woozy, and things looked a lot worse for the Doc's clinic than they looked for me.

If the outside of the clinic was a mess, the inside was a disaster. Acrid smoke filled my nose the second I stepped in, and it was so thick I could barely see. The lights were all out, but the flames and shorting circuits lit the place up enough. Pipes, tubes, scopes, all of Doc's strange machines were scrap, still trying to work and making a racket in doing so. Bolts shot out of a small boiler with the force of bullets and barely missed my head. A large propeller-shaped fan lay in pieces on the ground, but still spun half-heartedly as it tried to keep working…But no sign of the Doc.

I knew he was here, and I knew he was still alive, but I had to find him; his time was running out…

"Doc!" I screamed into the trashed clinic. "Doctor Hiroshito! Where are you!"

My sixth sense, though by now I suspected it to be Kael whispering in my ear, was clearly telling me there was no time. I began frantically tossing smaller pieces of wrecked equipment right and left, searching for the little dwarf-doctor before it was too late. The smoke was getting worse, and the fire had spread to more of the clinic. My right arm was feeling heavier and my head was feeling lighter, hell I was running out of time!

"Dammit, Doc!" I hollered. "You're in danger here! Please! Help me find you!"

What am I doing…maybe he's unconscious and can't hear me…This is getting me nowhere!

"Please, Doc, I know you can hear me!"

What if I'm wasting my time…what if I'm already too late?

But then I heard it. Clearly, above all the racket, a single, tinny thump-thump. It was coming from what seemed to be a blank wall… The Doc's secret room? That had to be it! It was probably the only place he could have survived in!

I ran up to the wall and closed my eyes, trying to feel for the lock, switch or door panel that would open it up. The flames were getting higher, but I wasn't quite ready to try to calm them down… Fire wasn't my strong suit, and after all this time I didn't want to screw things up any worse than they already were. I decided to try to call Water to extinguish the flames. I closed my eyes and tuned in to the trickle, the tiny current that flowed through me, and I looked up to the sprinklers. It was a good thing they were there; otherwise I would have passed out trying to call water from any farther away. The sprinklers had been damaged, obviously by those who had set fire to the clinic, but the water in the pipes answered my call, and burst out, showering the clinic, and dampening the fire and heat. Water rained down, cool and welcome, but the effort of having called it made me feel worse, and the smoke was still getting thicker.

"Doc!" I shouted once more. "How do I open the door!"

I waited for a few moments, but there was no answer. I was running out of time. If the cops and firefighters didn't get me first, Atrahasis' goons were certainly still around. I desperately searched for an opening, or a mechanism, but there weren't any, and without the fire, the clinic was pitch dark. Cursing, I called up a small globe of werelight…and then I saw it.

I could clearly see the door, outlined by the glow, just like an ancient door from the world Before. Round at the top, with a large knocker, and a heavy handle. Only, it wasn't really there. I could only see it by werelight, which meant…magic? Ancient magic, not bottled Scherezade magic… I felt terrible, and it was getting worse. My sinking feeling about the Doc's state was too, but I was still puzzled, and kind of amazed at the magical door. Like an awestruck child, I reached out to the invisible handle and pulled. The wall in front of me shimmered and disappeared.

And there behind it was the Doc, lying on the ground in a pool of red. In the middle of a room I never expected to look quite like that.

It looked halfway between an alchemist's chamber and a torture chamber. Heavy chains hung from the ceiling over a surgical bed with cuffs and belts built in. The walls were covered both with arcane markings -like the ones on the console in the tunnel, I realized dimly-and by racks and racks of surgical tools that looked like something out of a horror vid. Pills and bottles, vials, test tubes and strange things floating in light jars covered the counters, sharing space with stones, feathers and crystals… I was mesmerized by the chair, and how…sinister it looked, but I was torn from my reverie by the Doc grabbing me, his small hand trembling violently.

"We must…get…out of…here," he wheezed.

"I know," I replied, bundling him up in some gauze and hefting him onto my shoulder. He was maybe only two and a half feet tall, and light as a feather. The back door, the one I had seen Seth slip out of once before, I broke down with a kick and then sped off to find a safe place where I could look at the Doc's injuries. I couldn't even feel my right arm anymore, I was just glad it was holding on to the dwarf doctor like it should. I could hear the sirens, so I knew the firefighters were on their way, and that meant that Atrahasis' lackeys would be keeping a low profile while they were around. That gave me time to find a place to hide. I settled on a small service tunnel underneath a train line. I couldn't even stand up in the space, but I didn't really need to… I crouched by the Doc and peeled away some of the bloody gauze.

He was in bad shape, that much I could see, but the Doc stopped me from prodding any further.

"It's no use," he croaked, placing a red-stained hand over mine. "I don't have…enough time…"

"Doc, dammit, don't say stupid stuff like that!" I tried to resume my stripping of bandages, but the little guy didn't let me.

"Whisper Firimar," he murmured. "There…is so much you need to learn…"

"Yeah, don't tell me…" I muttered. "Just be quiet and relax, Doc! I'll get you to a clinic or something and you'll be just fine. And then you can tell me all I need to know!"

"Don't be a fool… You, of all people should be able to see that there is almost no more Life in my shell…"

"What?"

"You haven't guessed…what I am?"

I had, but I suppose I hadn't quite realized it yet. I thought about the magical door, and the dreams I had had.

"You are… a Caretaker…a mage…aren't you?" I ended up saying.


End file.
